Thursday, February 07, 2008

Medical school professors react to criticism and defend the CAMbrian explosion. Is Flexner really smiling down?

Our recent Medscape Roundtable discussion on the controversies surrounding integrative medicine in the med school curriculum must have hit a home run. It got the attention of the leadership of the Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine (CAHCIM), arguably (with the possible exception of the AMSA) the most influential and best organized group supporting the infusion of, to put it kindly and gently, questionable teachings into the mainstream curriculum.

Members of the Consortium posted a letter to the editor in which they defended the “CAMbrian explosion”, concluding that instead of turning over in his grave, Abraham Flexner may in fact be “smiling down.” Although defects in their arguments are easy enough to spot two of the Roundtable authors, Dr. Roy Poses and I, posted a reply that can be accessed on the same page.

1 comment:

james gaulte said...

Congratulation on a great discussion to you and Dr. Poses and for a spot-on reply to the CAM teachers letter.