Complementary Medicine
Policy Number: #1-00
Policy Category: Practice
Approved by Council: November 1997
Reviewed and Updated: February 2004
Publication Date: May/June 2000
College Contact: Physician Advisory Service
Introduction
In 1996, the CPSO's Ad Hoc Committee considered what position, if any, the College should take with respect to physicians practising complementary medicine. The Committee agreed that physicians be allowed a reasonable and responsible latitude in the kinds of therapies they offer to their patients. In conducting its work, the Committee identified a number of core values expected of every physician and heard submissions from interested parties.
College Policy
In assessing patients, physicians should:
- Perform a pertinent history and physical examination of the patient (sufficient to make or confirm a conventional diagnosis) and to meet the appropriate standard of practice of the profession.
- Investigate, when necessary, utilizing generally accepted modalities pertinent to the complaint.
- Reach a conventional diagnosis that reasonable physicians would reach, supported by the data.
- Advise the patient of the usual and conventional treatment options, their risks, benefits and efficacy as reflected by current knowledge.
- Document all of the above in accordance with the regulations.
In treating patients, physicians should:
- Have demonstrated education, knowledge, skills and currency in their area of practice.
- Act honestly and always in their patients' best interests.
- Provide sufficient information to allow patients to make informed choices, and to refer to, or consult with, others when the practitioner requires assistance or when the standard of practice requires it. It should not be misconduct to refer a patient, honestly and without conflict of interest, to unconventional or complementary practitioners when appropriate and when there is no reason to believe such a referral would expose the patient to harm.
- Not misrepresent information or opinion; patients must be given the general degree of certainty or uncertainty of efficacy of a given therapy, notwithstanding the practitioner's individual beliefs.
In advancing knowledge, physicians engaged in providing treatments in areas of less well proven efficacy in any area of medicine should:
- Ensure that their patients are told the degree to which tests, treatments or remedies have been evaluated, and the degree of certainty and predictability that exists about their efficacy and safety.
- Be prepared to collaborate in the collection of information that can be appraised qualitatively or quantitatively, so that new knowledge is created, to be shared with, and critically appraised by, the profession.
In assessing complaints or concerns related to the practice of complementary or unconventional medicine, the College should:
- Utilize standards developed with the assistance of all interested members of the profession.
- Expect members to assist in evaluation of their colleagues.
- Utilize standing advisory panels as discussed in the full report.