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Who is holding us back from providing integrative and holistic health care?

Dear Editor, During one of our not‐so‐busy childhood asthma clinics, a resident presented the clinical case summary of a young boy with mild persistent asthma. The child was brought in by his father, and was lost to follow‐up for the past six months only to end up with an acute severe exacerbation occurring one week earlier. Since then, they have come back twice. I asked the boy`s father the reason for the loss to follow‐up. To this, the boy’s father replied “I had been giving Siddha medicine (an alternative Indian system of medicine) to my child all these days”. I was not able to hold back my surprise (or rather displeasure) and asked him the reason for revisiting us now, if he was already taking Siddha medicines. The boy`s father replied “when my son was on those medicines he was totally asymptomatic until last week when he had an attack. So I thought I might ask you if I can continue to take those medicines along with what you are about to prescribe”. Hastily I retorted, “I am an allopathic doctor and I cannot comment on whether you can take both forms of treatment as I am unaware about Siddha medicines and I fear it might result in adverse drug reaction of some kind. You should probably continue to follow one system of medicine in which you have placed your complete faith”. The boy`s father was perplexed and did not know how to react, but agreed to think about it and get back to me. In the meantime I had put the boy back on controller and reliever medications, and saw him off.