The Environment Surrounding the International College of Integrative Medicine

In the field of integrative medicine, the environment is one of extremes, with both heroes and villains as characters. I will attempt to describe this environment of my organization, the International College of Integrative Medicine (ICIM) with a purely subjective viewpoint, expressing hostilities and alliances without neutrality.
The first group I have identified is the community of integrative doctors in the United States, including participants in ICIM sponsored medical meetings, our members, and also those who have no association with us. This group of integrative doctors encounters constant harassment from various government agencies such as the State Medical Boards, the National Federation of State Medical Boards (an independent, private organization that has to answer to no other institutions about its actions or decisions) and the US governmental laws. They are also constantly attacked by “enemy” lawyers, mostly those who work for insurance companies which don’t want to cover integrative treatments, or lawyers who are part of the National Association of States Attorney General, a special interest group that strategizes about how to target integrative doctors to eliminate the field through intimidation.
Independent doctors who choose to practice integrative medicine are making a choice that could cost them their careers, and require a lot of political savvy as well as professional support. The American Association of Health Freedom is a lobbyist group that closely associates with ICIM, integrative doctors, and all other integrative medical associations. AAHF provides lawyers who are trained to defend alternative medicine and integrative treatments. They “fight back” against medical board harassment as well as try to pass laws that protect access to integrative medicine. They are a political action link between the public and the US government as well. When an ICIM member needs legal help, we funnel them to AAHF immediately, and we also encourage all out members to join AAHF, and promote AAHF’s activities.
Integrative doctors come together in many associations to try to educate themselves, do research projects, and gain professional legitimacy. These other groups are competitors with ICIM, and it is our goal to find as many ways as possible to set us apart from what these other groups offer compared to us. At the same time, these other groups are our colleagues and we share similar agendas. Several small organizations connect ICIM with the wider world of integrative medical associations. First, we use a business called Millivox to record our workshops and seminars. Millivox places this material online and lets customers download it. This small company is increasingly winning many of the integrative medical associations’ business, and soon they will host most of the major medical meeting recordings on one website, becoming a virtual shopping center for integrative medical knowledge. I anticipate many more connections and co-publicity between competing associations with Millivox as the catalyst. Secondly, medical students are attending our meetings in increasing numbers, and most of them attend the meetings of multiple groups. As these students start their practices they will bring increased knowledge and networking with various associations to any organization they join. Third, the American Board of Clinical Metal Toxicity is an accrediting organization (run by many of ICIM’s board members) that is increasingly being identified as the premier testing body for chelation therapy, a popular integrative treatment. ICIM does the classes and ABCMT tests and approves the doctors to practice chelation. ABCMT also examines doctors who have taken chelation classes with other groups.
ICIM uses the services of an outside accountant. We usually hire an agent to help facilitate our gaining of Continuing Medical Education credits, though sometimes one of our supporting businesses has helped us out if they have accrediting connections. We work closely with various hotels and CVBs to plan our meetings and seminars. We are constantly sending our referrals to our members to the public, who hear about us most often through health newsletters that are also our corporate sponsors and exhibitors.
Just as mainstream medicine has a close relationship with the drug industry, ICIM has a mutually dependant relationship with a network of businesses who provide substances used in our treatments. Compounding pharmacies, business that sell medical testing equipment, nutritional supplement companies and many more of this sort provide the money that pays for our teaching and in return set up booths at our meetings to sell their wares to the doctors we attract. Our corporate friends help us to publicize our meetings, help us find other likeminded doctors who might want to join ICIM, and deal directly with the hotels we work with to create smooth meeting logistics.
Several other bodies that affect doctors of integrative medicine are various international movements and treatments that influence the kind of medicine we know and teach in the US, and research grants such as the National Institute of Health, which bring together doctors in studies to attempt to prove the effectiveness of functional (another word for integrative) medicine. Those studies are sometimes ways in which we find our members, and we can also help gain participants in studies by promoting them from within our group.
In a world of friends and enemies, the environment surrounding ICIM is a dynamic, changing force. We are affected daily by swings in public opinion, state and federal law, legal actions, economic trends, and a climate of competition and passionate commitment to a risky cause. As an organism, ICIM needs to become the opposite of a chameleon, setting itself apart in any way possible to stand as an inspired leader in a dangerous, exciting field, which just might be the path of the future of medicine.