Worldwide, there has been a resurgence of interest in alternative medicine. Rather than reject these out of hand as a lot of rubbish, it’s worthwhile educating yourself about the other treatment options your patients may be exploring. After all, India has always had a long tradition of alternative therapy such as ayurveda and yoga, and we can learn to combine the best of both worlds to offer our patients what is now called integrative medicine..

Alternative and Complementary Medicine Topics at http://www.people.virginia.edu/~pjb3s/Complementary_Practices.html provides an extensive index to alternative medicine Web sites. The index covers over fifty topics, presenting a smorgasbord of alternative therapy options - including many you may never have heard of such as Amma therapy and cryogenic medicine !

Two other useful link sites are the Alternative Medicine Homepage at http://www.pitt.edu/~cbw/altm.html and the Holistic Healing Web Page at holisticmed.com. The Alternative and Complementary Medicine Center from Health World online at http://www.healthy.net/clinic/therapy/ is also worth a look !

Unfortunately, a number of Alternative Medicine sites are commercial sites, put up by clinics in order to lure patients. In order to help separate the wheat from the chaff, it’s worth visiting Quackwatch at http://www.quackwatch.com !

Homeopathy

Dr Rajesh Shah, a homeopath from India has put up a website at http://www.classicalhomoeopathy.com. The main purpose of this site seems to be to attract patients for the treatment which Dr Shah offers. He has also registered a number of other websites, including www.leucoderma.com. While this is an excellent example of medical marketing, and Dr Shah should be congratulated on showing so much inititiative ( he accepts credit cards online; and also offers consultations by videoconference – but you need to pay for all these services, in US dollars, and in advance !) , there is little useful educational material on this site. However, it’s a good example of how to use a website to market your practise !

http://www.homeopathyhome.com/ is the best site for learning more about homeopathy, and has comprehensive links to other resources , which is why it calls itself the net’s best homeopathic resource. You will find many full-text books on homeopathy online here, including classics such as Hahnemann's Organon of Medicine, Homoeopathic Materia Medica by William Boericke, MD, and Kent's Repertory of the Homoeopathic Materia Medica.