Doctors and Nurses More Likely to Receive Acupuncture and Herbal Therapy Than General Population

A new report published in US News and World Report shows that 75% of health care workers in the United States use alternative therapies, including acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine, on a regular basis. Which means that they are actually dramatically more likely than the general population to research and seek out these therapies. 

According to the report,

Overall, health-care workers were found to be bigger users of complementary/alternative medicine than those outside the health-care industry. Seventy-six percent of health-care workers said they had used such methods in the past year, compared to 63 percent of people working in non-healthcare fields.

 Countering the notion that these therapies are unresearched modalities,

"In general, Western culture has believed that complementary services and techniques aren't as well-researched and evidence-based as conventional medicine," noted Knutson. "But that is certainly no longer the case."

This clearly mirrors what we see at the Northside Holistic Center. At one time it was rare to see a western-trained physician come to our clinic. In the last decade or so, we have seen this change dramatically. Around 15% of our patients are physicians themselves and many more are referred by their doctors. Even more telling, a large part of my practice is made up of people in the pharmaceutical industry trying to steer clear of the very same drugs which they manufacture and sell, in order to get a better result with Chinese medicine.