Can you help Robert Marshak?: Numbers of Vets in Complementary Medicine

[Guest guest]

Hi Professor Marshak,

 

, Dublin, here. Your fame as a pioneer veterinarian in U

Penn is well known in Europe.

 

I have passed your query to some Complementary and Alternative

Veterinary Medicine (CAVM) email Discussion Lists in the hope

that colleagues on those lists may be able to answer your query

better than I can. See below.

 

Colleagues, if you can help Professor Marshak to put figures on the

numbers of veterinarians in various fields of CAVM in your country,

please email him OFF- LIST, at

" Robert Marshak " <rmarshak

 

Prof. Marshak asked:

> Are there any reliable data on the number of members, by country

> if possible, in complementary and alternative veterinary medicine

> organizations? My e-mail address is rmarshak Many

> thanks, Robert R. Marshak, DVM, Emeritus Professor of Medicine &

> former Dean University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary

> Medicine

 

The short answer id no! The long answer, with suggestions, follows.

 

You ask a complex question, to which I have no clear-cut answer.

CAVM is a vast field, covering:

 

(a) Veterinary acupuncture (and many related modalities, including

moxibustion, low-level-laser-therapy, microwave therapy, trigger-

point therapy, neural therapy, TENS, etc);

 

(b) Veterinary herbal medicine (oriental and western) and

aromatherapy;

 

© Manipulative techniques (osteopathy, chiropractic, massage

(tuina, shiatsu, Bowen, Tellington-Touch, etc);

 

(d) Homeopathy and isopathy;

 

(e) Nutraceutical and allied nutritional therapy;

 

(f) Energy medicine (Qigong, radiaesthesia, projected healing,

prayer therapy, etc)

 

Internationally, increasing numbers of veterinarians are studying or

using one or more of the complementary medical methods. This is

due, partly because their clients are demanding a much wider

range of therapeutic options than heretofore, and partly because

many of these veterinarians have had first-hand experience of

complementary methods on themselves, or on close members of

their families.

 

In the late 1980's, I tried to estimate the numbers of vets using

acupuncture. I updated the paper in 1993. See:

http://users.med.auth.gr/~karanik/english/vet/histor1.htm

 

Even in those countries with an active Vet AP Association, or

where the authorities accept it, AP is a minority speciality, used by

< 0.5-3.0% of vets. Belgium (10-20% of vets), Finland and Taiwan

(c. 10% of vets) made the greatest use of it [

http://users.med.auth.gr/~karanik/english/vet/histor3.htm ]

 

I accept that those data were crude guesstimates by my contacts,

and may not reflect the percentage of vets who use AP today.

 

As far as USA is concerned, you might contact:

 

(1) IVAS [ http://www.ivas.org/main.cfm ]

or email Dr. Ed Boldt <IIvasoffice

 

(2) AAVA [ http://www.aava.org ]

or email Dr. Kevin May <office

 

Those organisations cooperate closely in the professional training

of vets in USA. They would have records of the numbers trained,

and of practitioners on

 

their referral lists.

 

Also contact

Dr. Narda Robinson <Narda.Robinson,

Dr Yann-ching Hwang <hwang,

and Dr Hui-sheng Xie <xieh.

 

Those colleagues have been involved in training US vets also, and

may have useful contacts in other countries.

 

Also, see the IVAD Directory at

http://www.komvet.at/ivadkom/vapsocs.htm Although few vets in

any country have listed themselves on that directory, it lists

members of the National Executive of veterinary AP Socs in many

countries. You could contact them.

 

Re the other modalities, I really cannot help. See the Organisations

page of the AltVetMed site [

http://www.altvetmed.com/pages/organizations.html ] and contact

vets in the various modalities listed there.

 

I am sorry that I cannot be more helpful, or specific. The reason is

that I do not know of any site that pulls all the CAVM data for each

country into one site, or international directory.

 

Happy hunting!

 

 

Best regards,

 

Email: <

 

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