Overview
For more information on careers in this field, click on the appropriate profession(s) in the Career Explorer section of this site.
The National Institutes for Health defines complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not presently considered to be part of conventional Western medicine.
In general, health careers in the CAM field take a wholistic approach to patient care; that is, the patient is seen and treated as a whole person, not just a set of symptoms. They also tend to be strongly prevention-oriented and place a high value on the body's natural ability to heal itself.
CAM professions also often incorporate low-tech, "hands on" techniques, many of which can be traced to long-established (sometimes even ancient) traditions.
While some scientific evidence exists regarding certain CAM therapies, for most there are key questions yet to be answered through well-designed scientific studies -- such as whether particular therapies are safe and whether they work for the diseases or medical conditions for which they are used.
The list of what is considered to be CAM changes continually, as therapies that are proven to be safe and effective are adopted into conventional healthcare and as new approaches to care emerge. For our purposes, ExploreHealthCareers will focus on only those CAM professions which already are being used in conventional healthcare, or are relatively common adjuncts to conventional care.
For more information on the field of complementary and alternative medicine, see the NIH National Center for Complementary & Alternative Medicine website.
Also of interest:
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Complimentary and Alternative Medicine Overview 14 Sep 2009 [pdf, 155 KB]
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