We need to help individuals understand what may be effective, and be clear about what may be harmful – Stacey Tinianov
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