By Roahn H. Wynar
Late last year we stumbled onto the fact that the University
of Texas School of Nursing (UTSON) was promoting quack medicine
in a formal academic, accredited environment. At the time we were
tragically naive and thought that simply bringing the matter to
the attention of UTSON leadership would be enough to instantly
halt the program, driven by Dr. Aileen Kishi, the Director of
Continuing Education. Since then the program has continued to
suck at the nipple of University's resources, exploit the good
reputation of UT, and deliver scientifically backward and
medieval information to practicing Central Texas Nurses.
The UTSON Continuing Education program has been teaching homeopathy, an eighteenth century farce based on magical properties of water, and "Energy Therapy," where we learn how mystical organs called "Chakras" are related to sound and light. They also offer classes in aromatherapy where insane and irresponsible health claims are passed off as fact, and a class about herbs, where the program may be promoting a vitamin scam that charges victims $55 a month in addition to a $65 "urine test."
We have received droves of criticism regarding our "small minds," "paternal attitude," and "worship of Western Medicine." Sadly, due to the volume of such messages received we can not answer them all personally, but in this column we will address some of the most often made retorts to our complaints regarding UTSON.
Criticism: "Not all of UTSON is involved with this nonsense, it is just the crackpots at Continuing Education."
Our Reply: If quack medicine can live unfettered within UTSON Continuing Education the UTSON atmosphere in general must be extremely friendly regarding fraudulent medical practice. Since we began our investigation of quack medicine at UTSON not one faculty member has publicly stated that these classes have no place in the same institution that offers formal, science based, medical instruction. Students interviewed have reported nutcase material, like the dangers of electromagnetic fields near power lines, casually slipping into regular classroom instruction. If quack medicine is going to be presented at UTSON, Continuing Education is the most dangerous place for it. Continuing Education is delivered directly to practicing nurses, some of whom have limited science education. These nurses will believe anything that comes from UTSON, as they should. UTSON has broken the covenant of academia by putting the full faith and credit of UT behind nonsense, and then accepting money for it.
Criticism: "Science changes, what you think is wrong today could be right tomorrow."
Our Reply: Few realize exactly how wrong alternative medicine can be. Claims are simply imagined and invented by random "practitioners" or a grain of medical truth is exaggerated without bound by doctors who are trying to score a buck. UTSON is facilitating both these methods or being wrong. Alternative medicine can be so wacky that it is not even eligible to be wrong. An example of a theory that is so bad that it is "not even wrong," is the Law of Similars, taught by UTSON in Continuing Education. The Law of Similars claims that symptoms can be treated by ingesting a substance metaphorically related to the symptom. If you are turning yellow, make a remedy out of banana peel. Don't hold your breath for science to prove this one correct.
For science to suddenly embrace most of the claims of alternative medicine major theoretical shifts would be required. These shifts are far beyond the depth of UTSON to suggest or test. Energy Field Therapy, also known as Therapeutic Touch, would require a simultaneous restructuring of special relativity, quantum mechanics and thermodynamics. Homeopathy would require our knowledge regarding chemistry to be rewritten. Since these theories have yet to see a single violation, a singal paradox, a single anomaly, UTSON is making claims far beyond health. If UTSON is hoping for science to eventually justify its Continuing Education curriculum, they had better dig in for a long wait.
Criticism: "Nurses aren't that critical, if UTSON were a medical school, then we'd worry."
Our reply: Nurses are extremely critical to our health care system and it is plausible that advice they give to patients is taken more seriously than that given by doctors. With the rise of the "nurse practitioner" the situation is even more critical. At UT women get gynecological exams from nurse practitioners, not doctors. Nurses simply must know what they are talking about for modern health care to work. UTSON is undermining the credibility of nursing, and there will be repercussions in the future. We are not enlightened enough to understand what "holistic medicine" is all about. Followers of holistic medicine are caught up in a popular self-reinforcing cult. When we try to explain to them that simple high school level science flatly contradicts their every notion and that common sense rules out trusting a vast majority of their claims they look at us and politely smile.
In their heads they are thinking how wonderful it is that they are not bounded by logic and reason, and that their great healing powers are not stymied by western medical models. They pity us for not seeing the "greater universe of possibilities." We will pit our knowledge or alternative medicine against any member of the UTSON faculty. There is nothing important we do not understand about this ugly con.
Alternative medicine has, ironically, grown like a cancer in our culture. All the warning signs are there: it is driven by certain charismatic personalities: Deepak Chopra, Dr. Wiel, Dr. David Eisenberg. It is money driven. It feeds on desperate and pathetic people, overweight, dying, lonely or the chronically ill. All these are signs of cultism.
Criticism: "OK, so they're all placebos, the placebo effect can work wonders."
Our reply: Placebos are an acceptable part of medicine and can and should be used whenever possible. But ethical standards must always be followed. To ethically administer a placebo an obvious key factor is that the practitioner understand that the treatment is a placebo. UTSON is teaching placebo rituals to nurses as though they were real treatments. Example: Nurse Wise: "I want you to listen to Bach each day for fifteen minutes. We don't know why, but for some people this is extremely helpful in curing headaches. Come back in two weeks and we will see how you are doing." Two weeks later: "No better? Try some aspirin." Nurse Unwise (a graduate of UTSON?): "You have headaches? Oh, listen to Bach, that cures headaches."
Two weeks later: "No better? Hmm...maybe you should try Mozart." If UTSON was teaching this material in a class called "Treatments Your Patients May Ask For Because They Don't Know Any Better, and How to Deliver Them Convincingly," we would not be complaining.
Criticism: "You don't fool us, you are just a religious fanatic who objects because 'therapeutic touch' is 'Un-Christian.'"
Our reply: We object to the UTSON classes because they are scientifically unsound and stupid beyond belief. They are exploitative and intellectually shameful. It is true that many religious groups object for additional reasons, but usually their reasons are just as illogical as holistic medicine. Ironically the UTSON faculty member who is the biggest proponent of crackpot medicine is extremely active in a campus Christian organization. This is one of the rare circumstances where New Age nuttiness and Christianity bend and twist enough to accommodate each other.
Criticism: "Hey, there is something called the First Amendment, you are un-American for objecting to UTSON's presentation of whatever they want."
Our reply: We never have and never will propose thought control laws. The curriculum at UT however, is not some random collection of facts assembled by unqualified academics and carelessly presented to student sponges. UT material must be carefully considered and respectable. Science is invented slowly and thoughtfully. No one objects to the Austin School of Massage teaching whatever they want, but UT has an obligation to separate the science from the superstition.
Criticism: "Look, we agree with you that this stuff is stupid, but what's the harm? Homeopathy never killed anyone."
Our reply: Once the seed of anti-science is placed into the head of a nurse, the nurse will forever be deeply susceptible to quackery. If homeopathy is plausible to her, it is a small step for a quack to take to convince her of magnetic healing, inane vitamin claims, strange health devices, and impossible cures of all kinds. A responsible UTSON would be teaching nurses how to spot quack therapies and remedies, how to identify suspicious doctors and how to judge extreme claims. Instead UTSON is allowing suspicious doctors to instruct classes, teaching quack remedies as fact, and presenting extreme claims themselves. This is dangerous. Nurses are by nature susceptible to quackery. Most nurses we speak to are deeply caring and optimistic individuals. However, despite the fact that nurses may measure blood pressure ten times a day we have yet to meet a nurse that can satisfactorily explain the concept of "pressure." Some will tell you that the "cubic centimeter" is a measure of "concentration." Honest, selfless and caring people in a position of authority and lacking in fundamental science knowledge are major targets for quacks who play to these traits. UTSON continuing education can close this gap, protecting the profession from quack medicine. Instead it has chosen to facilitate quackery.
Criticism: "You are not a doctor, why should we listen to you?"
Our reply: Holistic medicine scoffs at scientific medicine and replaces it with inane physics and cotton candy spirituality. We have only challenged UTSON when they have demonstrated major scientific misunderstanding or have blatantly replaced science altogether with some New Age religion. We would not quibble with real medical debate like "Is it better to deliver a child without painkillers?" or "Which form of contraceptive is best?" But UTSON has gone far beyond this even to the extent of non-recommending real scientific research in favor of hopeless explorations of quackery in the battle against cancer.
In one second UTSON can turn itself around, reject quack medicine and begin the drive to restore the profession's respectability. By being the first public institution to incorporate anti-quack material in the curriculum, UTSON could start a trend. Fortunately only a small amount of active research in quack modalities has been conducted at UTSON and only two Ph.D.s have left the school via dissertations that are obviously empty of any real knowledge, as far as we can tell.
Wynar is a graduate student in physics. Visit his web site: "The Clearinghouse of Pseudoscience and Quackery in Cenetral Texas" at www.ph.utexas.edu/~rwynar/