BMJ Case Notes 2009
Going herbal | |
Professional guide to conditions, herbs and supplements (Quick Access). Advisory Board. Newton, Massachusetts: Integrative Medicine, 2000. (472 pp) ISBN: 0 9670772 5 7.
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These two volumes, sold separately, are the first of a kind in their attempt to place complementary medicine alongside "mainstream" medicine. The volume entitled Quick access professional guide allows practitioners with different educational and philosophical backgrounds to gain an understanding of different approaches to maintaining health and treating illness. The volume entitled Quick access patient information educates patients as consumers, and provides information which can be digested outside the consultation. The publications have both breadth and depth of coverage, and present the information in a consistent and accessible format. Each book is well laid out and contains practical categories such as "What to expect at your provider's office" in the volume directed at patients. Cross-referencing between valuable appendices at the back of the books is fairly thorough. References are listed at the end of each monograph rather than within the text. As with any text, achieving currency is a challenge and interactions with St John's wort that have recently come to light do not appear. Authors are not named and a large North American advisory panel with a diverse range of medical, scientific and complementary medicine training appears to assume collective responsibility for the content. Their opinion of their own work can be read on the back cover in the section entitled "Advanced praise for a new and respected source"! In the professional guide, the section on "Regulatory and compendial status" of various herbs predominantly includes information from the US Food and Drug Administration and the German Commisson E (the respected advisory panel to the German regulatory authority). However, this is still useful in Australia. The extent of coverage (100 conditions, 37 herbs and 44 supplements), as well as the provision of both professional and patient perspectives, make each book good value. All in all, this novel, integrative approach will suit many. Anna Drew
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