An Essential Desk Reference
The Academic Consortium for Complementary and Alternative Health Care (ACCAHC) has recently published the Clinicians’ and Educators’ Desk Reference on the Licensed Complimentary and Alternative Healthcare Professions.
This essential desk reference correctly states that it is time for traditional health care to become more integrated with complementary therapies, and that one of the primary blocks to that has been the lack of knowledge of traditional providers about the licensed professions that provide alternative care.
The public is more aware of complementary and alternative therapies than many clinicians, as evidenced by the huge rise in popularity of their use. This book is focused on fostering more collaboration among CAM practitioners and mainstream providers. The major chapters include Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, Chiropractic, Massage Therapy, Direct-Entry Midwifery, and Naturopathic Medicine.
In addition, there are appendices on Ayurvedic Medicine, Holistic Medicine, Holistic Nursing, Homeopathy, Integrative Medicine, and Yoga Therapy.
This well-referenced book will appeal to those clinicians with a scientific- and evidence-based mindset, and yet is written in simple enough language so that no therapist, or client, would be intimidated by it. Each section highlights the philosophy, mission, and goals of the individual discipline, along with characteristics and data, clinical care, scope of practice, integration activities, education, regulation, pertinent research, and current challenges facing the profession.
I think it’s important to get this book into the hands of as many mainstream-medicine practitioners as possible. While I intend to keep a copy for myself, I also plan to gift our hospital’s medical library with one, and to recommend it in my annual marketing letter to the healthcare providers in my area.
The book is available from the ACCAHC.
All profits above printing and distribution will go to the organization, which is a non-profit collaboration between the American Massage Therapy Association– Council of Schools (the COS was disbanded in 2009 and is currently not an AMTA-affiliated organization), the Association of Accredited Naturopathic Medical Colleges, the Association of Chiropractic Colleges, the Council of Colleges of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, and the Midwifery Education Accreditation Council.
Laura Allen
Thanks for posting this review, Laura. I would like to add that in addition to getting this book into the hands of conventional medicine practitioners, we would love to see it used in all CAM schools to get some IPE (Inter-professional Education) going amongst ourselves. If we are well versed about each other we can come together as a group and better help with integration of all health care practitioners.