Science Based Medicine

[porphyry]

From the blog Science Based Medicine.

Propagnada meant to indoctrinate medical students into chiropractic as CAM (Complimentery and Alternative medicine):

For people with chronic pain or with other refractory conditions, the chiropractic visit itself can be a source of comfort even without the addition of a demonstrable scientific component. Treatment by a chiropractor can generate a sense of understanding and meaning, an experience of comfort, an expectation of change, and a feeling of empowerment. Chiropractic’s combination of vitalist “innate intelligence” and simple mechanical explanation can give rich vocabulary for just those illnesses conventional medicine remains poorly equipped to address. Research indicates that for many of the illnesses chiropractic treats, precise diagnosis, assurance of recovery, and physician-patient agreement about the nature of a problem hasten recovery.

Chiropractic finds its voice exactly where biomedicine becomes inarticulate. Too often, biomedicine fails to affirm a patient’s chronic pain. Patients think their experience is brushed aside by a physician who treats it as unjustified, unfounded, or annoying, attitudes that heighten a patient’s anguish and intensify suffering. Chiropractors never have to put a patient’s pain in the category of the “mind.” They never fail to find a problem. By rooting pain in a clear physical cause, chiropractic validates the patient’s experience.

For people with chronic pain or with other refractory conditions, just thinking the chiropractor might help should be enough. If the chiropractor makes soothing, flattering noises at you, you’re supposed to feel better, and even a temporary and superficial psychological “lift” ought to leave you satisfied. Nothing empowers a patient like being treated like a child come to mommy.

If they throw around a bunch of religious, “spiritual” language and images, you will be totally charmed and disarmed, because you’re not supposed to question faith or expect any real scientific evidence for it. Even so, it’s nice to find a ‘science-y’ confirmation that God exists and the universe is on your side. If it sounds like religion, then the best test is deciding if it feels true in your heart. You want to be that kind of person.

Research indicates that for many of the illnesses chiropractic treats, nothing substantial related to your body’s health actually has to change at all. Being told you are better will make you think you are better, because you fall for it. Being told you are as sick as you think you are will make you feel so validated that you’ll never notice or care that you’re being mislead.

Chiropractic is able to lie in ways which biomedicine can’t, because it isn’t hampered by either honesty or real respect for the patient, as an adult. As long as they tell you what they think you want to hear, you’ll enjoy your visit and be none the wiser.