week of 4/29 (alternative medicine)
This week, our class discussions focused on the emergence of alternative medicine, and the pros and cons of their use. To start, the extent of alternative medicine is way more broad than I imagined, as it includes practices & remedies such like yoga, going to the chiropractor, acupuncture, drinking tea, and the use of marijuana. The use of this practices aren’t the most credible, as there is a lack of evidence and studies backing these. For example with marijuana, there are political obstacles like being classified as a class 1 drug and being illegal in many states that prevent proper, conclusive studies of potential benefits or harms from being carried out. Besides that, a good number of doctors wouldn’t offer alternative options, even if certain healthcare policies allowed for it, due to being skeptical on its effectiveness and ethicality compared to traditional medicine. For me, I see some practices of alternative medicine as beneficial and some I’m very doubtful on. For instance, throughout the pandemic there has been “remedies” for preventing COVID that people have come up with on the internet and through social media that consist of making the most weird drinks, mixing together random ingredients that shouldn’t be made into a drink at all. The viewpoints of the doctors that are skeptical of alternative medicine might foster a negative environment for the patients as they could become reluctant in telling the physician whether or not they are using alternative practices for their illness/injury, which can potentially be harmful for them if they take a doctor prescribed medicine that interferes with what they have already been taking. I also find it interesting how some practices were tied to early racism such as marijuana with Mexicans and some herbal practices with Native Americans. SES can also influence how much control a patient has in looking into alternative medicine and the confidence in the options they have in doing so. As I read about different stories of how alternative medicine has helped cure certain illnesses and injuries for different people, there’s a “wow!!” moment in my head but I also like to think that these practices tend to have different effects on people because not all of us have the exact same responses to substances and treatments.