With friends like this, who needs enemies?

It doesn’t pay to get behind in my email. I opened up my NIH NCCAM newsletter to discover that the NIH, in all their wisdom, appointed a new director to NCCAM (National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine). This, in itself, is no great shakes, but they appointed someone who knows squat all about integrative medicine. This makes as much sense as appointing a radiologist to be the new director for Cardiothoracic Surgery.

Why would they favor someone who has no experience with integrative medicine over the many qualified docs who use it in their practices every day? It’s been mandated that 50% of the members should be licensed in the disciplines that NCAAM are supposed to study, yet they are woefully short of that at 25%. Is this payback for Congress passing legislation that enacts the study of complementary alternative medicine and shoving it down their throat?

With health reform being bandied about with our morning Cornflakes, one would think methodologies that concentrate on preventative viability would create some level of priority. Then again, we are talking about a government entity. There’s a great article that goes to the heart of this.

Ah well, I know of a number of docs who would cheer this appointment.