STA, March 6, 2018 – The Slovenian Medical Academy, part of the Slovenian Medical Association, has called for a clear legislative distinction between conventional medicine and alternative healing practices, arguing that doctors should not practice healing.
Speaking to reporters in Ljubljana on Tuesday, the academy's chairman Pavel Poredoš said that it was unacceptable for doctors to practice medicine as well as healing.
"Doctors use tested and scientifically proven methods, while healers follow their instincts without proof that their methods are effective," Poredoš.
He argued that for the sake of patients Slovenia should establish strict control of healers, something that he said had already been done by some west European countries.
Poredoš expressed concern that a bill on complementary, traditional and alternative forms of diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation that is being drawn up by the Health Ministry would open the door to unacceptable intertwining of medicine and healing under the term hybrid medicine.
He argued that the call was to prevent abuse of patients' distress and trust. "It's unacceptable healers make money at the cost of patients by selling smart water."
Dušan Šuput from the Ljubljana Faculty of Medicine said it was wrong to use the term alternative medicine because "healing is neither medicine nor alternative medicine, it's an alternative way of making money".
The Medical Association's chairman Radko Komadina said that the 2016 amendments to the code of medical ethics enabled doctors to use complementary but not alternative methods of treatment.
Poredoš added that a complementary method could be introduced only after medical diagnostics had been conducted and treatment started.
The call for a legislative separation between medicine and healing was also backed by the medical colleges in Ljubljana and Maribor.
