Alternative Medicine Practitioners

More and more people are looking to alternative medicines and natural therapies to solve their health concerns. In fact, visits to alternative health care practitioners increased by 47 percent from 1990 to 1997. Further, a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) a few years back reports that the number of office visits to alternative medicine practitioners exceeded that of visits to primary care physicians by 60 percent.

I believe these numbers will only increase during the 21st century as this trend continues to build. Which means, practitioners will need to keep up with the demand. More students coming out of the chiropractic, naturopathic, homeopathic and other natural/alternative medicine schools will have a greater chance for private practice success; while practitioners currently in practice have a greater chance for expansion.

Traditional medical doctors may find themselves back in school to learn alternative therapies. The fragmenting of care caused by hyper-specialization will see the pendulum swing back toward the generalist. Holistic medicine will once again become the traditional care, as it was in the 1800s.