Ten Years After: Reflecting on Holistic Primary Care’s First Decade

By Erik L. Goldman - Vol. 11, No. 3. Fall, 2010

We started this publication ten years ago with a simple “mission:” to provide the primary care community with lively, balanced coverage of the emerging field of holistic or “alternative” medicine as it converges with mainstream practice. The basic premise was that physicians --and their patients--would benefit from a better understanding of the principles and practices of holistic medicine.

The need seemed obvious enough: the fragmentation and hyper-specialization of health care was escalating costs yet doing little to stem the tide of chronic diseases crippling and bankrupting the country. Millions of Americans were experimenting with alternative approaches about which their physicians knew little. Healing disciplines long marginalized by mainstream medicine--naturopathy, homeopathy, midwifery, nutrition counseling, traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurveda and others—were asserting their worth, bolstered by growing public interest.

With Holistic Primary Care, we hoped to build an information bridge between the medical mainstream and these holistic disciplines in the interest of fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and, ultimately, a more health-centric approach to health care.

[ ...Read More]