Alternative Medicine: Taking Charge of Your Health

• Answering Present Day Dis-Ease
• The Need for Quality Training
• The College's Commitment

Judging by the increasing interest of the public for what is called "Complementary and Alternative Medicine", it is clear that conventional medicine no longer fulfills the needs of people. Several factors contribute to our paying a heavy price for our modern hectic lifestyle, which is based on consumerism, stress, pollution, intoxication, poisons... In a context viewed as increasingly oppressive, punctuated with health scandals, the need to feel listened to and to be paid proper attention have come to light. There is also a need to inform and educate ourselves, either for personal benefit or to make a practitioner calling become a reality.

Answering Present Day Dis-Ease

Great viral outbreaks seem to be a thing of the past. They have been replaced with chronic illnesses that take lives slowly and insiduously, rather than suddenly. This slow death goes relatively unnoticed, its symptoms (or dis-ease) being judged too insignificant or too ordinary to be taken into account by the medical world. We however prescribe medication, that successfully silence, for a time, the "functional" symptoms. But without tackling the underlying causes, unbalance persists and ends up manifesting as well catalogued organic illnesses.

Progressively, as people become aware of this escapist logic, and demand a more thoughtful approach, they turn to alternative medicine and health practitioners. People want to understand what is happening to them, want to participate in the treatment, want to feel fully engaged in the therapeutic solution, not just be "irresponsible" pill-poppers.

In several countries, natural practices are no longer marginal, but rather, are asserting themselves more and more as an essential alternatives, complementary to conventional methods, were it merely for the liberty of choice in therapy they provide for an increasing number of persons.

The Need for Quality Training

But, without any true recognition of alternative medicines, the public voices its need to receive flawless professional services, in order to get meaningful guidance and to have a clear understanding of the over-abundant, and often dubious, natural information. The same goes for schools.

"We have a moral obligation to our students, because they represent the future practitioners on whom rest not only the credibility and success of alternative medicine, but also and most importantly, the health of our citizens." - David Bentata, AMCC Director

At the Alternative Medicine College of Canada, the vast majority of admission requests come from individuals having already experimented satisfactorily with one or more alternative therapies They want to learn more in order to better themselves and be of greater service to their families. Some want to start a new career. It often comes from a passion, a need to give, to heal others and to be of service to the community. There are also students from medical and paramedical fields, disillusioned at their practices, coming to learn a new approach.

These people seek, in good faith, quality education. They are looking for a complete education, a global approach, and not some "guru" to control or skew knowledge before transmitting it. The education must remain scientific (in the sense that it is explainable and logical) and opened to various care techniques. Too many "masters" of past have vowed to know THE truth, ignoring (almost) everything else of what was done in the school next door. Only their method was the right one! Students and practitioners had to apply THE method taught by THE master.

The College's Commitment

Just as people are suspicious of conventional medicine, future practitioners are suspicious of schools. They know that a good school must be opened to the world and not tethered to a master's quest for notoriety and power. Our students must gain not only knowledge in various fields, but also nourish a passion for learning, in order to continuously better themselves during their studies and afterwards, during their entire lives.