Royal Society of Medicine in England

The Royal Society of Medicine in England set up a series of meetings between orthodox and alternative practitioners in the hopes of better mutual understanding.

A survey taken amongst family practitioners in the Avon area showed many of them willing to refer patients. And in training medical students show an increasing interest in deepening their understanding of these alter-native viewpoints on health and disease.

In the USA doctors seem to be more aware of research showing the efficacy of, acupuncture and there seems to be more openness to ideas of energy in medicine than in the UK.

Here much of the early medical research was purely mechanical, ignoring the traditional theoretical framework and trying to explain acupuncture purely in terms of nervous impulses and chemical secretions, so leading to the idea that it was a useful technique for pain control and nothing else.