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My foot twitched nervously as I sat alone in the quiet waiting room. I was nestled between a sage-colored wall and a stack of tattered health magazines. I watched the ladies behind the reception counter whisper to one another and I tried to convince myself that I wasn't anxious. But I was. Needles were fine when they were used for vaccinations or blood tests, but seemingly arbitrarily jabbing them into my flesh? I wasn't buying it. Just when I was about to bolt, Dr. Khosh walked out to greet me. He shook my hand and smiled warmly.
"Don't be nervous," he said, and led me back to his office.
Alternative medicine is the use of unconventional techniques to alleviate discomfort and illness, without disrupting the body's natural flow of energy. This means swapping cough syrup for herbs and anti-anxiety drugs for meditation.
Alternative medicine consists of ancient healing processes that have been in practice for thousands of years. It is considered any practice that deviates from orthodox medical treatments, such as prescription drugs and surgery, and can be used to replace or used alongside standard medical care. Alternative medical practices include acupuncture, acupressure, chiropractic, herbal medicine, meditation and yoga.
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Shanna Nguyen always felt like something was missing from her pre-medicine studies at KU.
"I didn't want to be a conventional doctor and I didn't want to do conventional practices," the Kansas alumna says. "I constantly asked my professors, 'What are my alternatives? What can I do in the 21st century to better the health care system?'""
After graduation, she skipped medical school and looked into other options. While she was a student at KU in the mid- als alternative medicine was considered an orthought to traditional medicine, but she has a niche in alternative medicine education the East Coast. She now attends the city of Bridgeport in Connecticut for a degree in acupuncture. Her concern is health care and insurance industries so believe the general public was being all of proper medical care. She says medicine forces patients to adhere industrial complex" that uses invasive tissues and unnecessary chemicals that treat the body as one interdependent
Alternative medicine focuses on holistic healing. According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the
Photo illustration by Erica Birkman and Jerry Wang Reflexology is the practice of massaging pressure points on the feet and hands that correspond with various organs.
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February 19,2009