Perspectives Inaugural Issue (Winter 2013)

PERSPECTIVES • WINTER/SPRING 2013 15 PA • FORT LAUDERDALE RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Dr. Robert Grosz Publishes 21 st Essay Robert Grosz, Ed.D, professor of physician assistant studies and public health, recently pub- lished his 21 st essay entitled “Western Medicine; As We Know it Today…The Only Way to Go?” in the July 2012 issue of the Internet Journal of Allied Health Sciences and Practice . The article is provided below for your reading pleasure. Very often when we think of the evo- lution of medicine, or as we refer to it, Western Medicine , we think as far back as 2,000 years ago with Galen in Rome or perhaps 2,500 years ago with Hippocrates in Greece. We often sit back and think of how ancient that was…and how primitive that was. How did anyone survive? We might think of Harvey’s exposure of the circulatory system through direct observa- tion in the 1500s-1600s as one of the key revolutions in “our” practice of modern medicine. How primitive must we have been before these “major” advances? Perhaps it was a microscope and/or the discovery of a microbial world, or Ver- salius’ opening up the structure of the human body via dissection that catapulted us from primitive medicine to modern medicine. Anumber of scientists over a pe- riod of almost 75 years came up with “dis- coveries;” however, Von Leeuwenhoek’s work in the late 1600s when he first saw “cells,” in many opinions, was a medical breakthrough of enormous value. Further- more, perhaps the advent of antibiotics was the defining moment of Western Medicine as we practice it today. Some would argue that the concept of our Western Medicine was actually tied to advances in technology, either diagnosti- cally, surgically, and/or therapeutically. Of course, those with a pure science orienta- tion might feel that Western Medicine as we know it was/is dependent upon our evolution of “scientific thinking,” meaning the reliance on being able to recreate ex- perimentation and field testing in order to establish provable, credible, and pre- dictable results. For many, from whatever perspective Western Medicine has been viewed, it has been accepted that “our” medicine was the real and only “sound” medicine to practice. However, there are some con- cerns with this thinking. Isn’t it possible that the ancient medicines that have been practiced for thousands and thousands of years might have something to offer us? Indian medicine can be traced back 10,000 years, traditional Chinese medi- cine has existed almost as long, and records of Egyptian medicine show simi- lar longstanding interpretations. We may not agree with the opening up of one’s skull, as was done in ancient med- icine, as a feasible way of treating an ill- ness. Certainly we have come a long way in modern brain surgery. However, there are other conditions that were successful and might still be credible today, in either treatment or diagnosis. For example, how long did we look down our noses at the practice of acupuncture before we finally recognized an acceptable use for this prac- tice? Today, we see more and more con- temporary clinicians going back to school for training in acupuncture so they may in- corporate it into their practices. There are ancient Egyptian depictions of a musician playing an instrument along- side of someone (presumably a “healer” or a “physician”) performing a medical pro- cedure on a patient. The common interpre- tation is that they somehow incorporated music into their medical practice. Aren’t we doing this now? Most of the “comple- mentary” medical practices revolve around a philosophy that: 1) one cannot treat the body without also treating the mind/spirit; 2) disease or disorder is natural and thus the body tends to naturally “resolve” itself; and 3) anything that is introduced into the body should be “natural” and therefore “naturally” compatible with the “natural” structure and function of the body. Isn’t our medical training and prac- tice becoming more and more involved in the nutrition of our patients? Historically, nutrition was left up to the dieticians and