One of the highlights of this weekend was actually school-related. Wayne State has a co-curricular program in which students have to do a certain number of hours of community service, shadowing, attending specific seminars. Within this program there are several options of what types of service and shadowing an individual can choose to do. I've chosen the Humed program [Humanistic Medicine]. So this weekend, we had a "retreat," for which we watched a video on alternative medicine called "The New Medicine." The documentary emphasized how medical practice in America is changing to include treating the whole body rather than individual symptoms.
Now, I know there is a great deal of controversy on how effective alternative medicine is, however, several studies have been conducted showing that CAM (complementary alternative medicine) is highly effective. One specific study we discussed looked at the medical relief acupuncture & acupuncture-like treatments provided to patients with low back pain as compared to patients taking customized prescriptions. The study found that the patients that received acupuncture or simulated acupuncture rated their improvement of back pain much higher than those taking customized prescriptions. Now, the question is, what is "acupuncture-like treatments" and why was there no difference seen between these treatments and real acupuncture? The article described the simulated acupuncture as, treatments that mimicked needle acupuncture without skin penetration. The question of why simulated acupuncture and need acupuncture produced similar results remains unanswered.
My take on this that perhaps these treatments were not effective because of their actual mechanisms of healing--rather they produced therapeutic benefits because of the time & "human touch" that the doctor/caregiver gave to the patients. It seems like doctor visits nowadays last hardly ten minutes-which to me is not enough time for the patient to fully describe what brings them in. Moreover, patients hardly get to ask questions (based on personal experience). "The New Medicine" had an interesting point, it was along the lines of: The patient provides the best diagnosis, for he is the one living with the disease. I completely agree with this--physicians base their diagnosis (most of the time) on symptoms described to them by the patient themselves. Moving back to the point I was trying to make, I really think that human touch and greater time spent with patients, talking to them, really getting to know how they feel will most likely produce more effective treatments. I'm definitely going to look into this more.
Hmmm, another interesting part of my weekend was seeing my brother act in a Russian play, The Schooling of Bento Bonchev, written by Maksym Kurochkin. Now, the play was set in the future in a time where there were no sexual relations between men and women. Bento, the main character, is researching "ancient times" when sexual attraction did exist--but loses faith that love, sex, relationships ever existed. The play was performed by University of Michigan's students in the residential college of drama. I absolutely enjoyed the play -- one, because it was something other than neuroscience and nutrition, but more importantly, because it made me realize how our perception of the "ancient past" is most likely way off. I've never really thought of our present being someone's past -- and people will actually look for proof to explain our lifestyles. I remember making a time capsule way back in elementary school, and I think I put a barbie, a Time for kids, and a pepsi can and some other things that I can't think of, that was to be opened in the year 2050. I don't know if that will ever serve as proof for our existence, for the way we grew up and lived -- but I'm glad I had the opportunity to take part in something like that. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to live that long and go open my time capsule 40 years from now. Anywho, in conclusion, my brother was amazing, he was the best (of course I am biased)! But I do recommend people go watch it -- they're doing a shortened version of the play on Tuesday 7pm at the Keenes auditorium in East Quad (University of Michigan).
Alright, I'm out. Time for some sleep.
