Traditional and conventional medicine.

[Deep13]

These are two terms that need to be banished. They are usually used by proponents of so-called alternative medicine (which is really an alternative to effective treatment) to describe modern, scientific medicine.

There is nothing either traditional or conventioal about modern medicine. Traditional means it is done a certain way because it has always been done that way. Astrology is traditional. Likewise, conventional means that it is based on broad agreement rather tan evidence. Bleeding is conventional medicine.

By characterizing medicine as either traditional or conventional, alternative practitioners can paint science as static, inflexible and dogmatic and themselves as innovative.

[TZ]

1. True

But I hate the term allopathic as well.

[Deep13]

2. I think the term could accurately be applied to bleeding and purgetives...

...in use in the 1700s. A lot of the herb therapy in use seemed to fit the allopathic philosophy. They had herbs which were thought to alleviate excesses in the four humors. Anyway, I know the word is mainly uses as a pejorative by homeopaths to describe scientific medicine.

[trotsky]

3. I try to use the term "evidence-based medicine" when possible.

But I've lapsed and used traditional/conventional/allopathic at times.

Non-evidenced-based medicine also has a good term for it: supplementary/complementary/alternative medicine, or SCAM for short. ;-)

[Warpy]

4. I think of "traditional medicine" as the culturally based stuff

I had to deal with all the time, especially out here in the southwest.

We had to respect that stuff even if we didn't believe in it because of the power of the placebo effect. Back in the bad old days when people were heavy handed about banishing it from hospitals, there were a lot more negative outcomes among the people who firmly believed in it but were willing to give scientific medicine a try, too.

However, banishing all other terms in favor of "scientific medicine" for the type of medicine practiced by educated people in hospitals sounds good to me.

In the meantime, I'm taking a vacation from the Health Lounge. No matter what sort of innovation has been posted (today's was the "brain pacemaker" for intractable depression), the ninnies show up and try to turn it into some sort of conspiracy against free people by the mad scientists.

The good news is that kind of ignorance eventually kills itself off. The bad news is that it doesn't do so quickly or publicly enough.

[mr blur]

5. Well, of course there's only "Medicine" and everything else.

If an "alternative" is proven to be effective in tests then it becomes medicine. If not, it's just more woo...

[realisticphish]

6. i use

"real medicine" and "stupid not-medicine, you goddamn morons"