Anecdotal

Who needs proof when you have a great story? Phil Galewitz did a piece in the USA Today about “healing touch”. These are thirty minute sessions where nurses guide their hands along a patient’s body parts. Sometimes their hands are a few inches above the patient. Sometimes their hands lightly touch the patient. More than 100 U.S. hospitals have started offering this service. Sounds great, right? I am sure it can’t hurt. Inherently, I believe that we are made up of an energy force so maybe it can be manipulated or adjusted. Here’s the problem: no clinical trials have shown it does anything. In other words, there is no proof it works.

Does that it mean it should be stopped? Who knows? However, in an era where evidence based medicine is changing everything we do as physicians, shouldn’t nurses be held to the same standard? This is not a knock on the nursing profession, either. You just can go around making claims on anecdotal evidence. For example, a buddy of mine swears by the “healing touch” he receives in a Vietnamese nail salon shop he frequents on a regular basis. Until it was raided by the police, I could have sworn it was doing wonders for his depression. For even more proof, now that his “healers” have been deported, his depression is even worse. Where is the USA Today when you need them to do a story on this medical phenomenon?