Beyond Complementary Medicine: Legal and Ethical Perspectives on Health Care and Human Evolution

Consumers increasingly are turning to complementary medicine, such as acupuncture, chiropractic, naturopathy, massage therapy, dietary supplements and herbs, energy healing, meditation and yoga, and mind-body therapies. This book addresses the growing interest in the legal, ethical, and regulatory aspects of integrating such care into conventional clinical settings. Integration of divergent philosophies, paradigms, and practices requires responsible investigation, informed judgment, and open-minded yet critical study and analysis of various systems of healing. Michael H. Cohen offers providers and policymakers vitally important information by addressing questions such as credentialing, malpractice, informed consent, and liability for referrals. He describes both practical strategies for minimizing liability, as well as the necessary future evolution of the legal and regulatory structure. Cohen also probes uncharted ethical and bioethical issues in complementary medicine and integrative health care. He further explores the connection between law, medicine, and spirituality and the role of this connection in human evolution. The book's range mirrors the integrative process itself, a process of grappling with, and meaningfully assimilating, disparate traditions and unfamiliar ways of thinking about the significance of health, body, and being. Beyond Complementary Medicine is required reading for anyone involved in health care, including executives, insurers, managed care organizations, attorneys, ethicists, and lawmakers; physicians integrating complementary and alternative therapies; complementary and alternative medicine practitioners; medical schools, law schools, and educational institutions offering programs in health care, public health, and complementary therapies; companies manufacturing herbs and dietary supplements; and most of all, patients and their families. Michael H. Cohen is President of the Institute for Integrative and Energy Medicine, a nonprofit organization in health care policy, ethics, and legal and regulatory affairs, and an attorney with an international practice in integrative health care.