User:Brcampbell54

Growth of The Medical Research Literature on Non-Western Medicine As Indexed by The National Library of Medicine From 1966-1993: An Example of a Scientific Paradigm Change is a 1995 doctoral dissertation on the impact of non-Western medicine on the biomedical model.

15,561 references were downloaded in MEDLARS format from the CD-Plus version of Medline recoded and graphed. To replicate this study today, one needs only to download references from PubMed by going online. Back in 1993, PubMed was only available in large libraries and only on CD ROM workstations.

Findings indicate a 1,582 percent increase in the number of articles on non-Western medicine from 1966 to 1992.

It was found that because biomedicine lacks an underlying theory of how the body works one sees a crumbling of the biomedical model itself as anomalies such as acupuncture treatment cannot be explained. The main catalyst for change is initially triggered by external factors not internal ones and it is possible to identify specific events mentioned in the literature.

Cross-cultural exchanges and fact gathering missions are published serving to motivate more and more researchers to investigate new models and question the prevailing paradigm. Debate occurs along a continuum.

Shifts occur when the new paradigm is found to solve more problems than the old. Allegiances are formed almost immediately and rival camps are often adversaries who resent the attention the other group receives. Change takes place over decades. Skeptics do not accept results until they are verified outside of the field in question. Proponents are influenced by political propaganda and economic factors. Language, culture and one's own personal experiences all serve as barriers to scientific communication

Today in 2019, acupuncture, reiki, curanderismo, soul retrieval, and a myriad of other modalities are offered all over the United States. Thanks to Facebook and Wikipedia, one can research any of these healing methods and discuss experiences with others online.