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Healthcare systems and conspiracy theorists (47)

Why Smart People Still Choose Alternative Medicine?

(And What That Tells Us About Modern Healthcare)

Reason, logic, and evidence are the foundational elements of our world. These values have shaped the moral compass that brought humankind into modernity. And this is something that everybody should acknowledge—especially when it comes to something as crucial as our health.

Or so I thought.

In recent years, I’ve had many conversations with friends and colleagues—people with degrees, people I consider highly intelligent—and discovered that, to varying degrees, they also follow alternative medicine.

How can that be?

Modern medicine is built on stable foundations. It incorporates our knowledge of anatomy, biology, and chemistry. This understanding is combined with a systems perspective on the human body. Add to that an enormous pool of accumulated experience, vast resources, and cutting-edge technology. And most important of all, the bedrock of modern medicine is the clinical trial: every theory is tested, every treatment compared against a placebo. Only when all those pieces align does modern medicine make a claim or prescribe a course of action.

But then I started listening more closely.

These people often shared stories of chronic illnesses and repeated misdiagnoses. And their frustrations weren’t always directed at the science itself, but rather at the system: a lack of trust in the pharmaceutical industry, poor access to care, rushed appointments, or a feeling of being dismissed. Some spoke of cultural traditions and a deep-rooted sense of connection to them. Essentially, every skeptic I spoke with told me the same thing: the system didn’t meet their needs.

Restoring trust to the system

We have to recognize that these complaints are valid. I still believe that many of the alternatives people turn to are fundamentally less effective than evidence-based treatments—but that doesn’t mean we should dismiss the underlying message. In fact, we must listen to it.

What’s often missing is the human element.

People want—and need—a personal connection with their caregiver. They need to feel seen, heard, and understood. Sometimes that starts with a simple, “How was your day?” A moment of genuine interaction can relax a patient, build trust, and create the space for a more holistic conversation about their well-being.

Because often, the root of an illness isn’t just physical—it’s in a person’s lifestyle, their mental health, their diet, or other interconnected factors. These can easily go overlooked in a hyper-specialized, efficiency-driven system.

Of course, providing that kind of care is much harder than it sounds. Today’s medical practice is designed to be streamlined—to squeeze the most from a doctor’s limited time. But maybe it’s time to re-evaluate that.

Maybe the answer isn’t just better tech or more advanced drugs. Maybe the real solution is the simplest one: more time, more attention, more humanity. We’ve been trying to optimize healthcare like a factory, but healing isn’t mechanical—it’s deeply personal.

Let’s keep that in mind as we build the healthcare systems of tomorrow.


 

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