Question by Mikael Åkerfeldt: What are the prerequisites for alternative medicine?
I’m still in high school (in Australia) and I’m looking into alternative medicine now, would I have to go to uni or tafe? What kind of prerequisites would I have to have?
Best answer:
Answer by Alec S
For a quality school of Naturopathy, like my alma mater, Bastyr U. in Seattle, WA, you need to complete all the pre-med requirements, just like you were working towards any other western medical schools.
Add your own answer in the comments!
A major in uncritical thinking
It might also be helpful to develop an immunity to logic, evidence and reason.
I assume you’re talking about the Kirsch meta analysis. Firstly, it’s a meta analysis. It’s only as good as the trials it includes, though I’m not making a judgement on this specific meta analysis. It also didn’t find prozac to be no better than placebo. It found the placebo to be about 75% as good.
The difference between SBM and alt med is that science admits when it’s wrong, and adapts. How many well designed studies have shown (fill in the blank) to be no better than placebo? Too many to count. This doesn’t phase you, though. All those studies have been corrupted by big pharma, right? Why do you place such high value on studies that you perceive make SBM look “bad,” yet place no value in trials that prove alt med doesn’t work? If prozac is conclusively proven to be no better than placebo, we’ll move on. We’ll be happy we found out now, rather than later. You can apply that to anything in medicine, and it will be true. You can’t say that about alt med.
Edit: You’re talking very specifically about osteopathy. Why don’t you fill in the blank with homeopathy, reflexology, straight chiropractic etc.
Did you read my or Rhianna’s response about Prozac? The answer is there.
##A major in uncritical thinking
It might also be helpful to develop an immunity to logic, evidence and reason.####
Thats Actually the prerequisit to Conventional medicine.
Considerable resources are spent on conventional medical procedures and practice which have no evidence base regarding RCT trails.
40 million people around the world are prescribed a drug which is well known not to work as well as the drugs it replaced and no better than placebo yet it still continues. Its called prozac by brand name.
How does critical thinking and Logic fit in with these scenarios?
To answer the question about what subjects, you will need to cover anatomy and physiology quite comprehensively on most altmed courses. Biology and chemistry would be the go. Maths or physics may help also. You won’t need the grades you would for medicine because the competition for places will be no where near as high.
Edit:
###The difference between SBM and alt med is that science admits when it’s wrong, and adapts.###
Osteopaths no longer have treatment protocols for Apendicitis, flu, diptheria etc because we now know any changes to the musculoskeletal system would be symptomatic rather than causative.
We change once we know we have got it wrong too.
Why is prozac still being prescribed to 40 million people?
edit:
I hadn’t read Rhianna Answer. i’m over her Dramas.
http://www.prozactruth.com/fdalilly.htm
http://www.nationalfilmnetwork.com/store/DiscussionGuides/978-0-8026-0077-6.pdf
http://www.narpa.org/prozac.data.suppressed.htm
Edit:
Sorry Rhianna I didn’t know intepreting data equated to making sure you presented it with an overwhelming bias and excluding anything that could make it look negative and put the presented results into question.
####Edit: Lighty read my answer alright, but he’s butt hurt because he’s been bested and hasn’t the character to admit he gaffed his answer.####
It is LIGHTNING darling not LIGHTY.
What should we nick name you? First term of 1st year know it all medical student?
I had a Vindaloo last night. How did you guess my A*** was hurting?
NB. You stating that you have written a better answer than me doesn’t make that a reality anywhere except in you own deluded cranium. The others will decide for themselves which of us does. Your outburst do nothing to help your case.
That is all.
Both TAFE and Uni have alternative medicine courses. Depending what course interests you. The prerequisite varies depending on where and what you want to study.
In general, TAFE course entry levels are usually – a certificate course requires a minimum of year 10 and diploma courses requires a minimum of Year 12. Sound achievement would be minimum for each school subject. University studies are based on eligibility (subject prerequisite) and OP score. If the subject you would like to study is at university but your OP is too low, there are alternative ways to get into uni as listed >>>
http://www.sqit.tafe.qld.gov.au/prospective_students/school_leavers.html
http://www.uq.edu.au/study/?page=1099
It would be worth checking out the courses you are interested in and ask for more information. This link is very indepth about the steps to take prior to applying for TAFE or University >>>
Tertiary prerequisites>>>
http://www.qtac.edu.au/Downloads/Schools/Tertiary_Prerequisites_2013final.pdf
Red Angel’s answer covers most of it. But you need to get the prerequisites based on which state you’re in. QTAC only covers Queensland. They SHOULD be very similar for Uni courses, but safer to check.
You can also check various colleges that specialise in Alt Med courses. They don’t necessarily go through QTAC, VTAC, etc. So go to them directly.
Start here:
http://www.australiannaturaltherapistsassociation.com.au/courses/recognised_naturopathy.php
http://www.acnt.edu.au/
ANd good luck.
No morals would help. You have to be willing to scam people on a daily basis.
Credulity, lack of morals, inability to think logically and critically and a strong history of failing science classes.
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Edit: Note that Lightning has misrepresented the results of that Prozac meta study.
The trials by large, only involved people with very severe depression. There were no trials involving people in the severe range, and only one studying people with moderate depression. You cannot apply the results of that study to people in the moderate to severe depression group, or all levels of depression.
Another problem is that the researchers had to use estimates in parts of the study. If any of the estimations were innacurate, this would greatly affect the validity of the results.
Another glaring problem is that the authors only assessed depression symptoms on one scale. There are various methods of looking at recovery from depression. This may have affected the results.
Bottom line: The study may suggest that antidepressants do not work as well in people with mild depression. However, the assessment of the severity of depression is very complex, and individual response will vary. Based on this study alone, you cannot claim that prozac does not work better than placebo period. Thats not what the study is saying.
Learn how to interperet research instead of being an douchebag.
And we actually bother to test our treatments and discard the ones that don’t work. AltMeds isn’t subject to this oversight apparently.
Edit: Lighty read my answer alright, but he’s butt hurt because he’s been bested and hasn’t the character to admit he gaffed his answer.
Well the real prerequisite for alternative medicine is you need to be spiritually awakened.
It’s usually easier to simply study GP or surgery. In that case it’s enough to be just spiritually retarded, and not to ask too many questions. If you behave like a skeptic, then you are sure to succeed.
Apart from that there may be legal prerequisites.
But those are just illusions built on top of illusions, to protect the jobs of the parasites called government.
However, in these spiritually retarded times, it may be better to adapt to their stupid reglementations.
I hope that makes things clear to you.
If you want to actually research alternative medicine legitimately, some sort of advanced degree in medicine would be a good place to start.
If you just want to arbitrarily decide that something you believe in works and then start selling it to others without finding out if it actually works or you’re just fooling yourself, then no studying is required.
Don’t throw your life away on a dead-end career. Think about it. No new amazing research breakthroughs, no respect from most people, no support from professional organizations, no government regulation, no insurance will pay for treatments you offer, no safety standards or clinical practice guidelines, etc, etc. The disadvantages are too many.
If you still decide you want to do this, then here are some things you should study:
biology
chemistry
organic chemistry
biochemistry
pharmacology
Hopefully these will arm you with enough science to realize how bogus alt med really is.