Perspectives from general practice: skilled doctors or imported complementary practitioners?

Abstract: This short paper looks at the doctor's role in meeting the increasing demand for complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). As CAM develops a growing presence within the National Health Service (NHS), doctors' and complementary practitioners' (CP) knowledge of and their attitudes toward one anthers work will need to adapt. The probability is considered that non-conventional therapies (NCT) techniques adopted from CAM will eventually be widely used by doctors and a brief account of the challenges of collaboration between CPs and GPs given. The author, a doctor and complementary practitioner with experience as a GP trainer, researcher and postgraduate teacher, considers educational approaches that would familiarise doctors with CAM, preparing them for cooperation with CPs, and outlines a model postgraduate curriculum introducing CAM to mainstream health care workers.

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