208 Being a Doctor After Being a Patient
specialist, said that his support group mistrusted doctors who were thought to‘‘ conspire’’ against CAM.
I hear from ten guys who aren’ t in medicine what it’ s really like from their perspective: the mistrust. They feel like there’ s a conspiracy by physicians and pharmaceutical companies against alternative medicine: doctors and drug companies are in cahoots.
Yet physician wariness of CAM may stem simply from its being unproven. Medical education teaches skepticism and rigorous questioning of claims of treatment efficiency. Hence, when seeing media reports concerning treatment, physicians may be cautious. Stuart said,‘‘ I don’ t get stampeded by the popular media or the alternative medicine community. I can read between the lines.’’
‘‘ Faith’’ in CAM
Nevertheless, as patients, some of these physicians reversed their attitudes and became more favorably inclined toward non-Western treatments. Despite being trained to view alternative approaches with suspicion, several ill doctors began to use such modalities themselves. Charles even conducted underground studies on alternative therapies for his HIV.
My bubble’ s been popped as far as thinking that Western medicine is the only approach. In medical school, I was only taught about acupuncture. Yet in my mind, it works, and is finally being approved. Still, it was‘‘ voodoo,’’‘‘ ridiculous.’’
At times, these doctors changed their views seemingly despite themselves. Many came to reassess the value of approaches that had not been scientifically‘‘ proven’’ to work. They recognized more that studies were limited, in part because of obstacles to giving patients appropriate randomized placebo controls. Scott, the internist with the infected foot, was surprised that a treatment ended up working, since he felt his physician was‘‘ doing voodoo.’’
The skin graft doctor was doing all kinds of unproven stuff:‘‘ We don’ t really know, but we’ ll try it.’’ He put this therapeutic boot on me. I said,‘‘ I looked this thing up, there’ s absolutely no science on it.’’ He goes,‘‘ Yup.’’ But it helped. He said,‘‘ Look how well you’ re doing with this thing on, and there’ s absolutely no science