A friendly and insightful debate at MASCC23 with these amazing humans on whether or not Traditional Medicine is Fundamentally Compatible with Evidence-Based Medicine.
Our takeaways:
~Regardless of opinions on compatibility, patients are using TCAM interventions; and they are not regularly disclosing to their care teams
~Words Matter: “Evidence-based” means different things to different people and what constitutes “Traditional” is not always clear
~ Some countries (like Japan) are already miles ahead with integration and data to support efficacy of some traditional interventions
~ We need to make time and space to ask individuals what matters to them with regard to therapies and supportive care
~ We need to help individuals understand what may be effective, and be clear about what may be harmful
~ We need to find creative ways to research (and incentivize research) on promising supportive care interventions and then we need to ensure EBM doesn’t widen an equity gap in access

Photo of Stacey Tinianov from patientpower.info