Talk:Integrative Medicine

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

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Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 00:35, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Redirect to Alternative medicine

Although I've just extensively edited this page, I've realised that this topic is covered much better in the alternative medicine article, which this article has usually redirected to. I propose returning this redirect. Verbal chat 10:21, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

That article is fairly big already, but IM, CAM, AM, &c. all refer to the same sets of practices and can usually be used interchangeably. IM is bigger than Andrew Weil now, so Alternative medicine would seem the appropriate target. - 2/0 (cont.) 15:54, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Integrative Medicine new text

I have written some information on integrative medicine. I do agree that alternative medicine is a major part of integrative medicine but only a subset. I will add more info to the page when I have time.Jenyee28 (talk) 21:07, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Revive discussion about redirect

18 months later, is this topic really different enough from Alternative medicine to justify two articles? At the very least, there will need to be a great deal of overlap between the articles. The existence and placement of any distinction is so finely dependent on the sources chosen that I find the single article solution superior. I could see an argument for the evolution of the use of the term integrative medicine, but the term is used in so many ways by so many people that it seems that anything beyond a simple dictionary definition would mislead more than inform. - 2/0 (cont.) 13:00, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I share your concerns. Someone even tried creating a category and began adding to it. I reverted based on the fact that it would be nearly impossible to create such a category as there is no clear definition of its possible content. It is nearly synonymous with "complementary" medicine, except it refers to the situation and not to the remedies or methods themselves. In practice practitioners of alternative medicine, be they laymen or MDs, claim pretty much every imaginable alt med therapy as "integrative" or "complementary", regardless of whether it's total nonsense, safe, or very dangerous. It's an absurd and uncontrolled jungle. All we can do is use the definition currently proposed.

We should include the definition, and bold the term, in the alternative medicine article. It used to be there but disappeared at some point in time. That's a violation of the original agreement made when we merged all three articles. All three should be mentioned in the lead there.

We should then make the article page here a redirect to the alternative medicine article and leave a redirect here to Talk:Alternative medicine.

What think ye? -- Brangifer (talk) 19:41, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Huh, when did that section disappear? Most of the content that I can recall at this point seems to be at Alternative medicine#Terms or Alternative medicine#Education, so it might not be so bad as all that. I will go see if I can add integrative medicine to the lead over there without causing a ruckus, then this page and talkpage can be redirected in a day or so. Good? - 2/0 (cont.) 21:08, 14 January 2011 (UTC)