Special tailoring

Thursday 01 February 2007 at 06:08 am. As herbalists we often condemn the medical profession for lacking the individual approach, an approach tailored to the specific constitution of the patient. I had a class about cancer therapy the other day and realised that, in a certain way, we couldn't be more wrong...

It probably is a matter of definitions (yet again). What exactly is an individual approach? I was taught it is an approach that is specific to that one patient. So if you see another patient with the same condition you might (actually, you probably will) treat it differently. Well, that is exactly what these doctors do (or at least, it is what we get taugth in med school). Thus, if you see two kids with the same disease, you might treat it differently because of different markers on the cell, or different expressions of the disease. After a short search i found that Nature already featured an article on this two years ago.

So, of course, I started to wonder about the differences and similarities. Why don't i as a herbalist perceive this treatment approach as individualistic. Maybe the problem is that I sometimes use the words 'individualistic' and 'holistic' interchangably. Which is, obviously, not a good thing to do. A 'whole-listic' approach is considering the whole person, so you check the whole health status of the patient and you tailor something specific for this person (not only the condition/symptoms are treated). This is also your individualistic approach. In medicine I do not always get the feeling the whole person is treated, but merely the condition (which, as discussed previous, is not true). Although the treatment for this condition and this patient is also described as individualistic...

Difficult, difficult... So I've come to realise it is all a matter of what we get told when we are studying, or when we are with friends or people we admire... It would be so nice if everything was black and white, wouldn't it? It also depends on acceptance and seeing the good in the other, whether this is a course, an institute, or a person.

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