Pulse debate on acupuncture
I’ve been on my hols in beautiful Galloway but Pulse chose this week to print my contribution to the acupuncture debate.
A few years ago I thought there might be something in acupuncture and I was keen to exploit its potential to help my patients. Unfortunately, my personal experience of a medical acupuncture course left me feeling like I had been sold a timeshare or indoctrinated into a cult. The evidence was brushed aside and selectively quoted by GPs in a feverish atmosphere of enthusiastic and misguided holism. I was not impressed and I became sceptical.
You can read the rest of my contribution to the debate at Pulse.
I had to chuckle at the comment by Mike Cummings. It turns out the other GP, Dr Andrew Hamilton, who wrote the pro-acupuncture piece attended the same BMAS course as me in 2003. I think I can safely say that our views have since diverged…
Wonderful piece on acupuncture, Euan. Pity it’s behind a “reg-wall”. Do you think Pulse would get offended if you reproduced the whole thing here?
Beautifully put. And how many “fringe medical” CAM therapies could we apply that too? (All of them?).
Your opponent Dr Hamilton’s “No” (pro-acupuncture) piece cracked me up. At times I though I was reading a spoof, so happily did it trot out all the usual hand-waves, platitudes and non-sequiturs.
Hmm. Surely no argument would hang around if it had been repeatedly and comprehensively debunked?
Sadly the reality is otherwise.
Dr Aust,
You are too kind. I will post up my side of the argument and link to Pulse – I’m sure they will be cool about it.
Obviously, I had no idea of who was writing the other piece or what would be in it but there were a couple of nice symmetries. I liked the fact we had both been to the same BMAS course and the ‘thousands of years’ gambit was not unanticipated.