Does Alternative Medicine have any role in companion animal healthcare?
The United States healthcare system for both humans and companion animals is founded upon the practice of scientifically-based, clinically-tested, conventional medicine, or more succinctly termed “Western medicine.” Western medicine is more advanced, more proven, and more reliable for most aspects of animal healthcare than alternative methods. It is the customary, prevailing, normally accepted standard that is predominantly taught at our medical schools, found in our hospitals, and covered under our health insurance policies. Any other type of medical practice that significantly diverges from that standard is viewed as unconventional, unorthodox, or alternative. Unfortunately, many Western medical practitioners disdain alternative practices of medicine due to skepticism, ignorance, or fear of the unconventional. Conventional practitioners all too easily forget that modern Western medicine is actually an offshoot of yesteryear s traditional medicine and that its roots have tapped many a
