Bizarre medical advice

malbui said:
Since posting the OP I have learned that this kind of thing is not exactly unknown in this part of the world. I now know of two clinics around the lake from here who regularly call on this kind of "support" while patients are being transported, and as I understand it there is a senior burns specialist at a big teaching hospital who claims to have some kind of "healing touch", learned from some wise woman in the middle of nowhere. I really don't know what to make of this.
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Well for starters, I'd worry about the quality of medical care in your region. Is there some sort of standards body you can file a complaint with, if the hospital actually endorses that sort of thing?
 
This is a topic that hits close to home for me. I am a registered nurse, and I work in a burn ICU. The disbelief expressed here reminds me of the way I felt when I first learned about therapeutic touch. It is frustrating to be part of a profession that strives to be taken more seriously, but practices such foolishness. I agree that this event should be used as an opportunity to educate health care providers, but I am afraid that it will do little good. In college, the professor teaching CRITICAL THINKING was the biggest proponent of therapeutic touch!?!
This topic really bothers me, because, in health care, we are dealing with peoples' lives...but unfortunately, there are kooks everywhere, and skepticism is not a prerequisite for a nursing degree.

By the way, I am glad that Malbuinette is okay...burns can be awful.
 
I I have lived in Switzerland and I can assure you its true.

when i queried it with a friend who has lived there for 17 years,she told me tales of men ringing up,bleeding from knife wounds,and the bleeding was stopped straight away....i found it pointless to argue over such stories.

I was surprised at the extent of quackery in Switzerland.
 
I'm in clinical research, and I can't tell you the amount of crazy things that end up listed as concomitant care, regardless of evidential support.

Three things:

1) I have worked with exceptional physicians and nurses in Switzerland, so let's not give up on the whole lot of the Swiss medical establishment just yet.

2) Is it at all possible that the "nurse" on the other end of the help line wasn't really a nurse at all? It would sure be a good thing if she was an operator, a Nurse's Aide, or some-such. Seems unlikely, but a girl can hope, can't she?

3) I wholeheartedly agree with Teek's assessment of the need for redress of this woman's actions. And even moreso with Teek's sassy style.
 
When you look at back pain some of the studies show Chiropractors obtaining similar results as regular treatment. But looking at the anatomy of a spinal adjustment, nothing really happens.

Some think we just aren't very good at treating some kinds of pain so any placebo will do.

If it were in the US, I'd chalk it up to a dumb health care worker and I would notify the hospital. But in another country...depends on the norm.

Apparently France is still big on Freudian psychoanalytic psychiatry. It's not considered valid here.


But on another note. The best and most important thing to put on a small burn is cold. (Really big burns require sterile coverings and go to the hospital but cooling the site before you get there is important if you can do it without introducing a lot of contamination.)

If you put ice (with a layer of cloth or paper towel between skin and ice) on a burn and you keep it on (with very short breaks) until the pain is completely gone (several hours), you will cut healing time in half or more.

The mistake people make is only using the ice for a short time. But you can actually continue to apply ice all day if necessary. Not only does it control pain when it's on, but it also prevents a lot of the fluid from filling the blisters and it minimizes inflammation. That is what shortens healing time and limits the injury that continues to occur after the heat source is removed.
 
malbui said:
This is something I've been meaning to post about for a while.

A few weeks back, I was cooking Sunday lunch and chatting to Malbuinette in the kitchen. I took a saucepan off the heat and turned to drain it in the sink, and while I was doing so Malbuinette took it into her head to walk across the kitchen, reach up and put her hand on the still-hot gas ring.

You can probably imagine the screaming.

So I did what was necessary to deal with the immediate pain and heat and once the screaming had died down a bit I phoned the emergencies ward at my local hospital for some advice, not really being prepared for this kind of event. I should mention that this is a very well regarded and equipped Swiss hospital, the place where Malbuinette herself was born in a complex birth and where I had state of the art spinal surgery a couple of years ago.

The nurse I spoke to was very calm and collected and gave me detailed advice, telling me what to get at the pharmacy and what to look for on my daughter's hand to see if a hospital visit would be necessary later on. When I asked specifically about pain relief, though, instead of recommending a product she gave me a phone number. I got her to repeat it, asking if it was a callout doctor, and she replied that it was a healer who could take the pain away at a distance. Just tell them the child's name and date of birth and they'd do the business :jaw-dropp.

Now, am I missing something here?


The important part of the story is that Malbuinette's hand has healed up very nicely: the blisters had gone within about four days and after a week or so all the dead skin washed off to reveal clean, healthy skin underneath. She has also learned a lesson about touching things in the kitchen, as have I. But I'm still baffled by that piece of advice.
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Ah, I see you've been offered to benefit from "the secret", an ancient body of knowledge that has been preciously kept withing the mountains of Swiss Jura mountains by wise men and women who discovered the virtues of the telephone and the use that could be made of both the gullibility and the thirst for power of some nurses* ;).

I've heard innumerable tales of people knowing people who told them about other people who got horrible and extended third degree burns and phoned one of those wizards who gave them "the secret" (usually a prayer) and whose burns magically and quasi-instantly disappeared. Of course, nobody has ever been able to present me with an actual description of the events leading to the burn, or of the burns themselves, or of a reason for the continued existence of burns units in hospitals .. :rolleyes:
Theres's been some local media coverage of this phenomenon a few years ago (TSR1). They've interviewed a number of specialists, who generally didn't want to state their opinion clearly, preferring a typically Swiss compromise like "of course, there's not much evidence for a real effect, but as long as the patients feel better and it doesn't interfere with proper care ...". I suspect they also have omitted "and we certainly don't want to go into a fight with the nurses and quackery promoters in political circles". :rolleyes:

* I'm not surprised at all by your story, I suppose it was at "La Tour". I've been working as a medical secretary at the main hospital in Geneva for years (Cantonal), and I keep being amazed at what some of the nurses will believe, and do behind doctors' backs. I think you should complain but don't expect more than a "we know but there's not much we can do about it ...".
 
Advil is way better. It is candy-coated.

I've actually been considering purchasing some distance healing for an article. (Yes, yes, I know it's a waste of money.) I've been considering how best to do it, and the best I can come up with is cutting two fingers simultaneously and only telling the distance healer about one.

You can purchase the services of a distance healer online, by the way. It's incredibly expensive, and you get absolutely no proof they're actually trying.
 
jens said:
This is a topic that hits close to home for me. ...
In college, the professor teaching CRITICAL THINKING was the biggest proponent of therapeutic touch!?!
This topic really bothers me, because, in health care, we are dealing with peoples' lives...but unfortunately, there are kooks everywhere, and skepticism is not a prerequisite for a nursing degree. ...
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Thanks for the post.

There is dissapointing news about medical education in the US.

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2006/11/not_so_stealthily_sneaking_cam_into_the_1.php
I don't know about you, but I was getting a little tired of writing so often about the same topic last week, namely the insinuation of unscientific and unproven "alternative medicine" into the medical school curriculum and its promotion by the American Medical Student Association (AMSA). I had planned on giving the topic a rest for a while, but then on a mailing list to which I subscribe, an example came up of something so outrageously egregious that I had to post just one more time. ... It's a terrifying example of what can happen if you let a little pseudoscience in; pretty soon it's taking over medical schools. Worse, it's showing up at a prestigious medical school where, I would have hoped, the faculty should know better.
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There is a consortium of medical schools promoting quackery, and Harvard was one of the founding members (although the quote, above, refers to another). And many med schools have quacks (e.g., naturopaths) on staff!? They also have web-sites promoting quackery. For example, the University of Maryland-
http://umm.edu/altmed/index.html

The NIH maintains a web-site that is equally bad-
http://www.healthfinder.gov/
which they claim is a guide to "reliable" health information. When the National Council Against Health Fraud complained, their link was removed from the site.
 
Medical students should be educated about CAM because, whether they like it or not, their patients will be using herbs, supplements, etc. Medical schools have an obligation to teach, as best they can, what information is available about at least the most commonly used substances with regard to effectiveness, safety, and interactions with "traditional" pharmaceuticals. When the students are physicians, they will need to be able to discuss alternative therapies with their patients. Burying their heads in the sand to what's going on will put them and their patients at a disadvantage.

HOWEVER, that's a far cry from endorsing methods without evidence. I looked at the University of Maryland website, and, at first, I was impressed with the breadth of the substances covered. The number of herbs alone that are described is extensive.

Then I clicked randomly on one that I had never heard of, and what do I find? Instructions for how you would dose yourself to treat a urinary tract infection.

First of all, shouldn't you see a doc first to make sure of the diagnosis?

Second of all, saying that 1.5g of an herb (that happily comes in capsules according to the site) daily is effective is absurd when there is no standardization whatsoever in the preparation of herbals because the FDA doesn't see fit to regulate the industry. No verification of the concentration of the active ingredient(s) is performed, so how do you know that you're even getting what you think you are?

Third of all, for some patient populations, a suboptimally treated urinary tract infection can lead to serious complications, and this herb can cause nausea, vomiting, sleeplessness, irritability, and heart rate abnormalities (I'll give them credit for posting at least the known side effects). What's wrong with a good old fashioned, well-tested antibiotic?

Anyway, teaching CAM in medical school is a must. Endorsing unproven, potentially-dangerous modalities is another thing all together.

I don't know what it's like right now, but no one I knew in medical school thought much of AMSA or what it had to say on just about anything. I'm guessing that you can see why. Too bad nothing has changed. All I can say is that few medical students felt that the organization represented them or their attitudes (it is a student-run organization, for those wondering). Those that got involved with AMSA could be likened to the politicians among us-definitely not the brightest, not the most motivated to learn about or practice sound medicine, but those who wanted to "be active" or "get out there" in medicine. In other words, a rather irritating sort.
 
Katana said:
Third of all, for some patient populations, a suboptimally treated urinary tract infection can lead to serious complications, and this herb can cause nausea, vomiting, sleeplessness, irritability, and heart rate abnormalities (I'll give them credit for posting at least the known side effects). What's wrong with a good old fashioned, well-tested antibiotic?
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Oh I know the answers to this one.

1)It's a Chemical
2)It's not Natural
3)Antibiotic means against life and I am not taking poison like that into my body

Anyone got more?
 
Katana said:
Medical students should be educated about CAM because, whether they like it or not, their patients will be using herbs, supplements, etc. Medical schools have an obligation to teach, as best they can, what information is available about at least the most commonly used substances with regard to effectiveness, safety, and interactions with "traditional" pharmaceuticals. When the students are physicians, they will need to be able to discuss alternative therapies with their patients. Burying their heads in the sand to what's going on will put them and their patients at a disadvantage.....
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What does the C stand for?

I have another thread on this issue but will repeat the point here. The first thing we need to do is quit calling it Alternative Medicine.

Alternative Medicine implies it is an alternative to Evidence Based Medicine, not that it is an alternative to 'modern', 'Western', or 'regular' medicine or whatever you want to call evidence based medicine.

You can call it unproven medicine, or, non-evidence based, anything that identifies it for what it really is.

When something that has been used traditionally turns out to have evidence supporting it, it becomes evidence based medicine and health care providers should be comfortable recommending it.

The argument that unproven medicines and treatments have no funding for research because they can't be patented is false. The billion dollar supplement industry is evidence for that. Most of these products are manufactured in much the same way as pharmaceuticals and many pharmaceuticals are derived from similar natural sources so the natural argument is false. The only real difference is they are unproven remedies. So that is what we should be calling them.
 
Over the thanksgiving weekend, my aunt got a headache and someone started suggesting all sorts of homeopathic junk to help her with it. I, in as serious a manner as I could muster, suggested she use sugar water which has been known to help just as well.

She took my advice seriously...
 
skeptigirl said:
....

Alternative Medicine implies it is an alternative to Evidence Based Medicine, not that it is an alternative to 'modern', 'Western', or 'regular' medicine or whatever you want to call evidence based medicine.

You can call it unproven medicine, or, non-evidence based, anything that identifies it for what it really is.....
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Follow up note in case there was any misunderstanding. I agree completely with Katana saying we need to include the education about non-evidence based medicine in evidence based medicine classes.
 
skeptigirl said:
What does the C stand for?

I have another thread on this issue but will repeat the point here. The first thing we need to do is quit calling it Alternative Medicine.

Alternative Medicine implies it is an alternative to Evidence Based Medicine, not that it is an alternative to 'modern', 'Western', or 'regular' medicine or whatever you want to call evidence based medicine.
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The way I see it you have effective medicine and then you have everything else. But I don't see why alternative is such a bad term. Ineffective Medicine might be better but see how many people you can get to agree on that.

The argument that unproven medicines and treatments have no funding for research because they can't be patented is false. The billion dollar supplement industry is evidence for that. Most of these products are manufactured in much the same way as pharmaceuticals and many pharmaceuticals are derived from similar natural sources so the natural argument is false. The only real difference is they are unproven remedies. So that is what we should be calling them.
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Except that the suplement industry is regulated as a food not a medicine, and why dismiss the patent thing? How many generic drug manufacturers which is also a large industry pay for such testing?
 
Since the advice came from a hospital, you should ofcourse think it is hospital endorsed. This woman should be reported. When she is on the hospital phone, she should only give out hospital advice.

Did she tell you who paid for this "healer"? Does the Swiss government pay for it? Wouldn't shock me at this point.

Who knows what over woo beliefs this woman endorses! She is frankly, a danger.
 
ponderingturtle said:
The way I see it you have effective medicine and then you have everything else. But I don't see why alternative is such a bad term. Ineffective Medicine might be better but see how many people you can get to agree on that.
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The problem using the term "alternative" is you are implying it is OK to judge it by a different standard.

Effective medicine is OK but the medical community adopted the term, "evidence based medicine" a few years ago. The issue developed because many regular medical practices were also essentially 'traditional' and not well researched. The medical community by consensus has shifted from medicine as an art to medicine as a science and evidence based is the standard.

Except that the suplement industry is regulated as a food not a medicine, and why dismiss the patent thing? How many generic drug manufacturers which is also a large industry pay for such testing?
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What is being missed by this argument it that not all research is funded by drug manufacturers. Not all research is profit based. Much research is disease based such as that funded by the many non-profit organizations and foundations set up to look for disease cures. Other research is funded with university money and there is even some done for the sake of advancing medicine itself rather than some company's bottom line.

There is plenty of money to study those food supplements and many have been well researched. Only a few are turning out to live up to their claims. It is that reason you don't see the research being touted, not because the research hasn't been done.
 
Katana said:
Sorry. It stands for "complementary".
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Oh yeah, I had forgotten about that term. 'Complementary' as in, "don't skip your evidence based medicine when you take your complementary medicine". That term was developed to replace the idea an alternative was just that, something you take instead of the other.
 
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