Healing at the Borderland of Medicine and Religion »

Michael H. Cohen holds a joint appointment as assistant clinical professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Harvard School of Public Health. He is also senior lecturer at the University of the Bahamas, president of the Institute for Integrative and Energy Medicine, and principal in the Law Offices of Michael H. Cohen. He is author of five books, including Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Legal Boundaries and Regulatory Perspectives.

One of the transformations facing health care in the twenty-first century is the safe, effective, and appropriate integration of conventional, or biomedical, care with complementary and alternative medical (CAM) therapies, such as acupuncture, chiropractic, massage therapy, herbal medicine, and spiritual healing. Cohen discusses the need for establishing rules and standards to facilitate appropriate integration of conventional and CAM therapies. Focusing on the social, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions of integrative care and grounding his analysis in the attendant legal, regulatory, and institutional changes, Cohen provides a multidisciplinary examination of the shift to a more fluid, pluralistic health care environment.

Library Journal

Cohen (health policy & management, Harvard Sch. of Public Health; Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Legal Boundaries and Regulatory Perspectives) follows his previously well-received books with a new look at the continuing growth in popularity of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). His legal and scholarly qualifications provide him with the ability to contemplate the legal, ethical, and regulatory aspects of how the integration of CAM can best proceed. What issues need to be discussed with patients? Are doctors liable if CAM therapies don't work? How can we continue to remain open to alternative forms of medical treatment while maintaining high-quality, safe, and ethical healthcare? Cohen devotes a large part of this book to issues surrounding spiritual healing techniques and how they may relate to current and future legal and regulatory policies. While lay readers may find the book too philosophical and esoteric at times, it raises many interesting points for academic discussion. Recommended for larger public and academic libraries, particularly those specializing in biomedical ethics and law.-Tina Neville, Univ. of South Florida at St. Petersburg Lib. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Negotiating the New Health Care 19

Chapter 2 Regulating Health Care Rogues 49

Chapter 3 Regulation, Religious Experience, and Epilepsy 65

Chapter 4 Healing, Environment, and Ecology 73

Chapter 5 Renewing the Matrix of Health and Healing 99

Chapter 6 Healing at the Borderland of Medicine and Religion 111

Epilogue Toward the Future 153

Appendix A State of the Evidence Regarding Complementary Therapies 163

Appendix B Key Arenas of Legal and Policy Intervention 165

Notes 169

Bibiliography 211

Index 225