October 12th, 2011 by Michael Kirsch, M.D. in Opinion
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There’s a new term that has entered the medical lexicon. The word is wellness. Hospitals and medical offices are incorporating this term into their mission statements, corporate names, business cards, medical conferences and other marketing materials. The Cleveland Clinic Foundation has appointed a Chief Wellness Officer, an intriguing fluffy title that does not clearly denote this individual’s role and function. This is deliberate, as the word wellness is designed to communicate a ‘feel good’ emotion, not a specific medical service.
Just a click or two on Google will lead you into the wellness universe. Here’s a sampling:
- Institute of Sleep and Wellness
- Wellness Institute of America
- Naturopathic Wellness
- National Wellness Institute
- Physicians Health and Wellness Center
- Physicians Wellness Group
There’s even a sponsored ad on Google where one can Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at MD Whistleblower*
October 29th, 2009 by Peter Lipson, M.D. in Better Health Network, Quackery Exposed
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Dr. Weil is often seen as the smiling “mainstream” of alternative medicine. He’s a real doctor (unlike, say, Gary Null), and much of what he advocates is standard and uncontroversial nutritional advice. But Weil illustrates the two biggest problems with so-called alternative medicne: once you’ve decided science is dispensible, the door is open to anything, no matter how insane; and no matter how altruistic you may start, sooner or later you start selling snake oil. Most doctors out there are working hard to help their patients prevent and overcome disease use the available evidence. Others decide that science is too constraining and start practicing at the periphery of knowledge, throwing plausibility and ethics to the wind.
The fact that Weil claims to donate to charity all of his ill-gotten gains does not mitigate the harm he causes. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
