Proposal to license Ayurveda Practitioners in the US

[Guest guest]

Dear Dr. Phadke,

I, in no way dispute your statements that even in "ancient" times in India, there were certain requirements before an individual could say physician. I'm afraid though, that I don't have the faith you seem to have in the supposed "benefits" of such.

I have been in medicine in the US for quite some time. When we (the US) were viewed by most viewing global statistics as having among the best, if not the best medicine in the world, I was adament that it was an illussion. My assertion was that we actually had the world's worst medicine; but the world's best construction industry and that we in the mecical field were taking credit for the work done by plumbers, electricians and other construction personnel. To put it bluntly, most of our people didn't bathe in the same water they just urinated in.

As the recent years have gone by and year after year, the US has fallen in all statistical areas and people wanted to blame guns and drugs, the one correlation is that the construction industries in other countries have caught up. People have sewer systems and refridgeration. Now the US is at the bottom of every list, barring the most undeveloped nations, despite spending more than the rest of the world combined.

Neither licenses nor "standards" has helped even one bit. We still have the world's worst medicine; certainly as it relates to "bang for buck" and as it relates to any country that can do such simple things as feed its people.

Please don't take our puffery as mastery.

thanks,

Rick

 

"dr.aashish phadke" <ayurinstitute > wrote: Dear Dr.

This is with reference to the statement you have made in the reply to Dr.Noel's message -you have said -

"in ancient India, Ayurvedic physicians never needed to be licensed -

and there were always those who were considered good and wise

practitioners, and those that were not - back then, as now, the

axiom was "buyer beware"

With due respect to what you have said, let me state that in ancient India Ayurvedic Vaidyas need to take permission ( a kind of licence) , required to take oath before starting practice (Maharshi Charak's Oath ) , they were punishable if they would have undertaken surgeries without King's permission ( Ref. - Arya Chanakya's Kautileeya Arthashastra ) !

<SNIP>

[Guest guest]

i actually sent a reply to dr phadke, but did mean to send it to the

whole list

i am attaching it here, but dr. phadke and i have further discussed

this, and i want to make sure that there is nothing personal in this

debate, and am posting it to the list to keep the thread going

 

cheers... todd

 

PS - is anyone else not liking the new format? for me, its

makes it more difficult to reply to a message...

 

 

dear Dr. Aashish Phadke

 

with regard to the point above, yes i am aware of this, especially in

regard to life-threatening surgery (for eg. bladder stone surgery,

which required the King's permission before the procedure was performed)

 

i hasten to point out however that the Arthashastra said all kinds of

things that might be objectionable by today's standards, including

the necessity of a secret service and assassins that served at the

King's discretion, even pretending to be doctors, astrologers and

holy men! - but is this really the way a healthy society should

function?

 

but i digress: an oath is not the same as licensing - an oath

(including ethical guidelines) can also be administered by a self-

regulating, professional association that has very high and evolving

standards for professional practice that does not require approval by

legislators, who really don't know good from bad ayurvedic practices,

and seeking independent consultation, might get a very biased opinion

since as far as modern medicine is concerned, the entire basis of

Ayurveda is questionable

 

the purpose of the oath to the king or higher authority is to make

the practitioner PERSONALLY accountable to their actions - in our

society licensing (and insurance) ultimately removes this obstacle

 

a good example is the Hippocratic Oath, taken by all licensed medical

doctors upon graduation

'at the least, do no harm' they say, but does anyone honestly believe

this when they are the second or third single largest contributors to

human death in the United States???

 

 

If there will be some rules / regulations with regards to the

licencing of Ayurvedic practice in US or per say why only in US ,

even in other countries too, let there be proper standards, pre

requisits for that , so then the practice of Ayurveda will be perhaps

really authentic !

 

i do not share the belief that licensing is THE answer - we need to

raise the level of education and awareness of ayurveda in north

america in a holistic fashion, and when it achieves the level of a

community of skilled, experienced and competent practitioners, the

entire issue of licensing becomes irrelevant because the public will

be attracted to these practitioners by their actions and good work,

not a piece of paper

 

respectfully... todd caldecott

 

 

> Re: Proposal to license Ayurveda Practitioners in the US

>

> Posted by: "Rick and Diana" rdiicakna rdiicakna

>

> Tue Jun 6, 2006 8:25 pm (PST)

>

> Dear Dr. Phadke,

>

> I, in no way dispute your statements that even in "ancient" times

> in India, there were certain requirements before an individual

> could say physician. I'm afraid though, that I don't have the faith

> you seem to have in the supposed "benefits" of such.

>

> I have been in medicine in the US for quite some time. When we (the

> US) were viewed by most viewing global statistics as having among

> the best, if not the best medicine in the world, I was adament that

> it was an illussion.

<snip>

Caldecott

todd (AT) toddcaldecott (DOT) com

www.toddcaldecott.com

[Guest guest]

Yes Todd I agree - the new format does make it more difficult to reply as you then need to delete all the graphics, unless you click on the reply button at the bottom of the page - but I suppose that takes you back to the homepage - I haven't tried that tho. But trimming posts seems impossible.

 

Jane

 

-

Todd Caldecott

ayurveda

Thursday, June 08, 2006 3:22 AM

Re: <ayurveda> Re: Proposal to license Ayurveda Practitioners in the US

PS - is anyone else not liking the new format? for me, its

makes it more difficult to reply to a message...

 

Todd Caldecott

todd (AT) toddcaldecott (DOT) com

www.toddcaldecott.com

 

[Moderator adds: Jane, since at ayurveda, all non-text portiona and attachements are removed by by default settings, hence no difficulties in moderation at all; it is fortunate that we are happy with text only at ayurveda]

[Guest guest]

Good Morning Todd (and everyone else).

You are absolutely right when you say that every effort should be made to keep government out of this. For that matter, keeping the lawyers and accountants out of things as well, would be useful, as they've certainly had their participation in the current sad state of affairs in medicine in the US.

The moment you accept licensing, you have taken the government on as partners and, as has been seen in most matters throughout history, they always insist on being the "senior partner".

Most ancient physician arts and forms of medicine other than allopathic are considered new here, despite most having lifespans that dwarf "traditional medicine". Getting public acceptance is certainly the key to expansion. There is, however, another factor that will have a greater impact than I see people recognizing: MONEY. There are going to be some significant changes in the way medicine is delivered in this country. Unfortunately, these changes are not coming about because of a motivation to deliver better care; but because everybody's going broke.

Blue Cross/Blue Shield tried an experiment in Chicago. They did a trial using chiropractors as primary care physicians. What they found in the study was that they saved 50% overall, 75% on pharmaceuticals and had customer satisfaction increased by over 200%. Patients were much, much happier with the care they were receiving and the costs were halved.

States are realizing they will run out of money within a very few years. Insurance companies have hit the wall o ratehikes, while expenses are growing faster than in any "field" other than oil.

This is the time for "alternative medicine" (including ayurveda) to become part of "normal" medical care in this country. My reccommendation is for the ayurvedic medical community to begin reaching out to all other "alternative" medical communities and work out a set of joint standards and approaches. In this manner, all medicine in this country can change without that change being initially fought by and later dictated by the existing medical industry. There is absolutely no doubt that change will occur. The question is, will someone other than those who have so badly fouled things up be involved in guiding those changes.

The general public is become more and more saavy. They read, they surf the web and they look. And more and more they make up their own minds. In addition, they're about to get some very serious shocks. With the work from the human genome research programs, quite a bit has been learned. In nearly every other country in the world with involvement in any of these programs, researcher in the medical schools and bio-chemists have been link with the agriculture departments at the universities. This is because they found in those programs something that everyone honest in medicine already knew, that for most diseases, there is some form of a natural remedy. Only in our pharmaceutical industry dominated medical community has that been lost. There are many treatments, cures and preventatives that are being developed by US researchers in US universities; but the clinical trials are being done in Central and South America and Eastern Europe, because they cannot

even get the trials approved here. The University of Tokyo is experiencing the highest cancer cure rates in the world using only rice bran and mushroom extracts. These types of things are taking place all over the world, EXCEPT here.

The day will come when a large enough percentage of the people in this country will read enough things on the web or elsewhere, where they'll see that "grandma didn't need to die." At that point, the FDA, the AMA and the

AAMC will lose their lock on medicine.

But, it's going to take alot of effort helping the public become better educated and it's going to take the various alternative medical groups working together as one, instead of looking at each other as competitors.

Whatever changes are going to take place will occur fairly soon. They have to, simply because the financial weight is close to collapsing most medicine in this country. The primary medical community (and, by the way, that is the "community" that I am a part of, having gone to a US med school and working with many of the med schools here) will either grab a firmer grip or lose the grip it currently has; given no solid alternatives. In many of the medical schools in this country, you have one or two advocates for making significant change and taking the "alternative" out of alternative medicine. But, these folks are generally lone voices shouted down by their colleagues.

Some have gotten wealthy writing books, but have little else to show for their efforts. Within this group, most are waiting for the various alternative medical communities to, I guess for lack of a better way of putting it, show that they've "grown up". Unfortunately for most in various alternative fields, including ayurveda, the public's general impression is guy's running herb stores, masquerading as doctors and new age quack gurus playing pitty-patty with the hollywood elite types. These stereotypes have to be changed.

I don't particularly relish the idea that the only way people will even consider looking elsewhere is because our mainstream physician community has failed them so badly. But, that's where we are. Medicine in this country stopped being about truly caring for the patients and NOTHING ELSE, years ago. In my opinion, if the ayurvedic medical community wants to be completely accepted by the general American public, convince them that you are A) REAL. Real Medicine. That's a key. And then B), that you are still about caring for the patient and ONLY about caring for the patient.

Thanks for putting up with my soliloquy.

Rick

Caldecott <todd (AT) toddcaldecott (DOT) com> wrote: right on darla!

the whole issue of licensing also brings up the issue of

"professionalism", which as a societal phenomena, has sought to take

the common knowledge of the people away from them by claiming that it

is dangerous or too complicated for lowly folk to understand

apart from the example of midwifery, there are many other examples of

this, and i would say that in general, the entire ethic of

professionalism has created more problems than not - at one time,

everyone knew how to take care of the common cold with simple herbal

remedies, steam baths etc, but then the medicos would would tell

people that notions such as excess 'phlegm' or 'cold weather' had

nothing to do with the common cold, and is caused by a viral infection

<Snipped> entire message available at:

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