Complementary Medicine why we need to know it

Text: Benedikt Reuthebuch | Vice-President for Communication

We are in the end of the 1940s in America when the term “Alternative Medicine” is initially brought up. Derived from a broad variety of traditional methods of treatment and boosted by the cultural revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s, it takes until the 1980s for the concept to firstly be introduced in the Central European area. At this point, another word enters the game: Complementary Medicine. This new term underlines the efforts of no longer deeming this part of the medical field as a different way to treat diseases, but to add a substantial value to the existing principles of academic medicine. With the structures of academic medicine steadily undergoing a process of rethinking in the late 1980s, Complementary Medicine strikes up to gain popularity.

Since then, our health system has been undergoing many changes. Regarding the topic of Complementary and Integrative Medicine, one of the most crucial events in Switzerland took place in 2009 when the Swiss citizens voted for an enhanced consideration of Complementary Medicine in the health insurance system. An impressive twothird majority voted in favor of these changes. In the time since, the demands of the initiative were put into action one after the other.

Some of them mainly affect doctors, like the revision of the Medizinalberufegesetz MedBG/ Loi sur les professions médicales universitaires (LPMéd) where Complementary Medicine was taken into account. Other innovations concern the broad population as by decision of the Federal Council, Complementary Medicine performed by medical doctors belongs to the services of the basic health insurance. Moreover, some of these changes even touch us medical students: the new set of learning objectives for medical studies, PROFILES, adds complementary medicine to our curriculum for the first time.

Demand for complementary medicine is high. According to the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH), almost 30% of the population claimed to have used complementary medicine in the past twelve months in 2017. In addition, more than 50% of physicians consider complementary medicine a feasible treatment as soon as the approaches of academic medicine fail to succeed. Complementary medicine is no longer a peripheral matter and should therefore not be treated as such. Let’s make sure we do not forget about this when one day we find ourselves racking our brains on how to make the treatment of our patients even better!

References: • Schweizerische Ärztezeitung: https://saez.ch/article/doi/saez.2019.17949 • Federal Office of Public Health: https://www.bfs. admin.ch/bfs/de/home/statistiken/katalogedatenbanken/tabellen.assetdetail.7586143.html • Rütte J: Kurzexpertise: http://www.dakomed.ch/ app/download/11866446427/Kurzexpertise_R_

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