One of the transformations facing health care in the twenty-first
century is the safe, effective, and appropriate integration of
conventional, or biomedical, care with complementary and
alternative medical (CAM) therapies, such as acupuncture,
chiropractic, massage therapy, herbal medicine, and spiritual
healing. In
Healing at the Borderland of Medicine and
Religion, Michael H. Cohen discusses the need for establishing
rules and standards to facilitate appropriate integration of
conventional and CAM therapies.
The kind of integrated health care many patients seek dwells in a
borderland between the physical and the spiritual, between the
quantifiable and the immeasurable, Cohen observes. But the present
environment fails to present clear rules for clinicians regarding
which therapies to recommend, accept, or discourage, and how to
discuss patient requests regarding inclusion of such therapies.
Focusing on the social, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions of
integrative care and grounding his analysis in the attendant legal,
regulatory, and institutional changes, Cohen provides a
multidisciplinary examination of the shift to a more fluid,
pluralistic health care environment.