Interesting Naturopathic Rabbit Hole At KU Medical Center and Riordan Clinic

[MedicalDoge]

Hello all!

So I have a lot of time on my hands before school starts, and I have no idea how my internet searches brought me to this topic (one of those google search black holes). Anyway, please review the links below and tell me what you think of this.

It seems as though KU Medical Center has a pretty naturopathic leaning "Integrative Medical Center" with the new director only having one publication on acupuncture. They also have a page where Dr. Riordan, founder of the Riordan Clinic in Kansas, was appointed as the chair for one of their sketchy departments a while ago, the Department of Orthomolecular Medicine (which pretty much means giving excessive amounts of nutrients the body needs?). Both Riordan and the Riordan Clinic (more "integrative medicine") advertise using IV Vitamin C and UV blood irradiation (UBI) for cancer treatment... wtf. The "publications" posted on the Riordan clinic UBI website are largely irrelevant basic science articles or generic links to the ACS website... ominously reminiscent of naturopathic tactics to justify their "treatments." The Light Therapy sections of the ACS website only talks of using UV to help treat Seasonal Depression, not cancer...

It just seems sketchy that the KU Medical Center with an allopathic medical school has these weird departments and seemingly strong affiliations with the naturopathic Riordan Clinic (yes, they actually have a ND working there, seeing patients).

Is this a common occurence? Am I reading too much into this? This just seems very disconcerting considering the rise of antivaccine movements and strange/dangerous pseudoscience treatments.

Note: I have absolutely no ill-will towards KU, I just saw a facebook post about UBI and that lead me to these findings.

Here are the relevant links:

Riordan Clinic UBI- Ultraviolet Blood Irradiation | Riordan Clinic

Review of KU Integrative Medical Center- Naturopathy, functional medicine, and other quackademic medicine at the University of Kansas Medical Center - RESPECTFUL INSOLENCE

Riordan at KU: Riordan Fund

Naturopathy at Riordan: Naturopathic Medicine - Riordan Clinic

Director for KU Integrative Medicine: Yoon Hang "John" Kim, MD

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[Phile98]

This is super sketch. Definitely not a good look for KU.
Other hospitals actually run respectable integrated medicine campaigns. But these programs focus on fixing the diet and lifestyle choices. Take for example Mark Hyman. He's the director of functional medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. http://drhyman.com.
It's programs like KU's that take away from the beauty of functional medicine. In a hospital, medicine should always take prerogative over diet and lifestyle. However, the importance of living healthily cannot be understated. Hippocrates' words are undeniably relevant to this day. “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”

 

[seekere]

I’m going to GW and they opened a integrative medicine department too and you can even do a scholarly track starting M1 in it. very sketchy

 

[efle]

We have a mandatory "alternative and complementary medicine" unit in our M1 curriculum here (also a US MD program at a big academic center). This included mandatory small groups with absolutely bat**** insane acupuncturists and chiropractors who made claims such as: reading a history of childhood trauma from the shape of someone's auricle, reading the color and shape of someone's tongue to tell them if they had any psychological disorders like depression/anxiety, or that meditating for half an hour was equivalent to sleeping for four hours. Also lots of general hand waving and talk about realigning chi flow.

I don't know how much money the alternative med center is bringing in but it must be pretty significant for them to build complete pseudoscience nonsense into our curriculum like this.

 

[MedicalDoge]

The only thing sketchy here is the jumping to conclusions without further research. The NIH has a center on Complementary and Integrative health and several schools / medical centers, most notably Georgetown, are doing research in the field. The purpose of the NIH center is put rigorous study to these supposed therapies and find out which have real value and how they can be integrated into overall medical care.

https://nccih.nih.gov/

View attachment 236126

Sorry, I should've specified that I know true integrative medicine is definitely a great field, and that some schools have great integrative medicine programs. Here, I was specifically talking about the sketchy KU one.

 

[Goro]

Hello all!

So I have a lot of time on my hands before school starts, and I have no idea how my internet searches brought me to this topic (one of those google search black holes). Anyway, please review the links below and tell me what you think of this.

It seems as though KU Medical Center has a pretty naturopathic leaning "Integrative Medical Center" with the new director only having one publication on acupuncture. They also have a page where Dr. Riordan, founder of the Riordan Clinic in Kansas, was appointed as the chair for one of their sketchy departments a while ago, the Department of Orthomolecular Medicine (which pretty much means giving excessive amounts of nutrients the body needs?). Both Riordan and the Riordan Clinic (more "integrative medicine") advertise using IV Vitamin C and UV blood irradiation (UBI) for cancer treatment... wtf. The "publications" posted on the Riordan clinic UBI website are largely irrelevant basic science articles or generic links to the ACS website... ominously reminiscent of naturopathic tactics to justify their "treatments." The Light Therapy sections of the ACS website only talks of using UV to help treat Seasonal Depression, not cancer...

It just seems sketchy that the KU Medical Center with an allopathic medical school has these weird departments and seemingly strong affiliations with the naturopathic Riordan Clinic (yes, they actually have a ND working there, seeing patients).

Is this a common occurence? Am I reading too much into this? This just seems very disconcerting considering the rise of antivaccine movements and strange/dangerous pseudoscience treatments.

Note: I have absolutely no ill-will towards KU, I just saw a facebook post about UBI and that lead me to these findings.

Here are the relevant links:

Riordan Clinic UBI- Ultraviolet Blood Irradiation | Riordan Clinic

Review of KU Integrative Medical Center- Naturopathy, functional medicine, and other quackademic medicine at the University of Kansas Medical Center - RESPECTFUL INSOLENCE

Riordan at KU: Riordan Fund

Naturopathy at Riordan: Naturopathic Medicine - Riordan Clinic

Director for KU Integrative Medicine: Yoon Hang "John" Kim, MD

*sigh* someone call the FDA!

 

[Goro]

We have a mandatory "alternative and complementary medicine" unit in our M1 curriculum here (also a US MD program at a big academic center). This included mandatory small groups with absolutely bat**** insane acupuncturists and chiropractors who made claims such as: reading a history of childhood trauma from the shape of someone's auricle, reading the color and shape of someone's tongue to tell them if they had any psychological disorders like depression/anxiety, or that meditating for half an hour was equivalent to sleeping for four hours. Also lots of general hand waving and talk about realigning chi flow.

I don't know how much money the alternative med center is bringing in but it must be pretty significant for them to build complete pseudoscience nonsense into our curriculum like this.

Jeeze...do they do phrenology too?

 

[gyngyn]

Jeeze...do they do phrenology too?

One of my personal favorites.

 

[smukke]

Yes it's the ongoing infiltration of quackademic medicine.

link

 

[seekere]

Sorry, I should've specified that I know true integrative medicine is definitely a great field, and that some schools have great integrative medicine programs. Here, I was specifically talking about the sketchy KU one.

Integrative Medicine that works is just called medicine. The whole reason this field exists is to cater to quacks and "ideally" help them transition to/be more comfortable with evidence-based medicine.

 

[efle]

I don't think it's inherently bad to offer these types of services as long as it's a complement to medical treatment and providers are honest about their safety and efficacy of their methods.

That's the craziest part of placebo, it still works even when you tell them it's likely just placebo. To me it's terrifying to see leading academic medical centers abuse this and start pretending it's good practice. It is not ok to have doctors writing sugar pills for their patients, not even if they tell them the jury's still out as they write it.

 

[seekere]

That's the craziest part of placebo, it still works even when you tell them it's likely just placebo. To me it's terrifying to see leading academic medical centers abuse this and start pretending it's good practice. It is not ok to have doctors writing sugar pills for their patients, not even if they tell them the jury's still out as they write it.

I don't disagree, but it's the way culture is swaying now. People trust Jenny McCarthy and DontVaccinate.com more than they trust doctors. Then when they go to their PCP or the hospital and doctors refuse to serve them like customers, they write bad reviews which not only impact the doctors, but make the hospitals look bad. That's why these integrative BS centers have been opening up- to try and bridge the gap that has been created. Do I agree with pandering to these folk and contributing to an unfortunate paradigm shift in medicine? No. But Dr. Google and Mr. Press-Ganey have other opinions

 

[MedicalDoge]

I disagree with that last part. I think if patients give informed consent, they're welcome to try stuff that may not be established practice as long as it's along with medical therapy and known not to be harmful. If it helps, great, and if it doesn't, no harm done. That said, I do have a real problem with some of the BS stuff out there being promoted as a miracle cure.

I'd also restate that for some of the stuff like acupuncture, yoga, meditation/mindfulness, etc. there is actually some halfway decent evidence showing efficacy for certain health problems.

Yeah, I really only think these dubious treatments are unethical when the pseudoscientist doctors mislead patients into thinking Vitamin C or shooting UV light in their blood will cure their early stage cancer better than conventional treatment. If people want to take some herbs are do whatever on the side in addition to conventional treatments, I am all for it. Unfortunately, that is not always how the cookie crumbles. It is a shame to see the recent rise of public distrust in real doctors.

 

[Med Ed]

Is this a common occurence? Am I reading too much into this? This just seems very disconcerting considering the rise of antivaccine movements and strange/dangerous pseudoscience treatments.

It looks like the founder of Riordan endowed a chair at KU (or one was endowed in his name), but there does not seem to be any formal affiliation between the two organizations. The "review" of KU's Integrative Medical Center is five years old, and the director it lambastes stepped down last year. As for the new director, do not assume that his publication record has been faithfully reproduced on the website. I tried a quick Pubmed search for author YH Kim but that was not fruitful (too many hits).

In short, you're reading too much into this.

 

[Med Ed]

It is a shame to see the recent rise of public distrust in real doctors.

This phenomenon is not recent, but it has been greatly fed by 15 minute office visits, a general reliance on treatment over prevention, and the fragmentation of care. We leave many patients with a strong sense that there has to be a better way, because the standard approach in this era is often deeply unsatisfying.

 

[efle]

I disagree with that last part. I think if patients give informed consent, they're welcome to try stuff that may not be established practice as long as it's along with medical therapy and known not to be harmful. If it helps, great, and if it doesn't, no harm done. That said, I do have a real problem with some of the BS stuff out there being promoted as a miracle cure.

The harm to worry about here isn't what the sugar pill might do to the patient, but what writing sugar pills does to the integrity of the profession. A vitamin C infusion is going to be harmless to the patient. We have to collectively agree not to abuse placebo like this, and only write what's been shown to work better than placebo.

 

[Stagg737]

Hello all!

So I have a lot of time on my hands before school starts, and I have no idea how my internet searches brought me to this topic (one of those google search black holes). Anyway, please review the links below and tell me what you think of this.

It seems as though KU Medical Center has a pretty naturopathic leaning "Integrative Medical Center" with the new director only having one publication on acupuncture. They also have a page where Dr. Riordan, founder of the Riordan Clinic in Kansas, was appointed as the chair for one of their sketchy departments a while ago, the Department of Orthomolecular Medicine (which pretty much means giving excessive amounts of nutrients the body needs?). Both Riordan and the Riordan Clinic (more "integrative medicine") advertise using IV Vitamin C and UV blood irradiation (UBI) for cancer treatment... wtf. The "publications" posted on the Riordan clinic UBI website are largely irrelevant basic science articles or generic links to the ACS website... ominously reminiscent of naturopathic tactics to justify their "treatments." The Light Therapy sections of the ACS website only talks of using UV to help treat Seasonal Depression, not cancer...

It just seems sketchy that the KU Medical Center with an allopathic medical school has these weird departments and seemingly strong affiliations with the naturopathic Riordan Clinic (yes, they actually have a ND working there, seeing patients).

Is this a common occurence? Am I reading too much into this? This just seems very disconcerting considering the rise of antivaccine movements and strange/dangerous pseudoscience treatments.

Note: I have absolutely no ill-will towards KU, I just saw a facebook post about UBI and that lead me to these findings.

Here are the relevant links:

Riordan Clinic UBI- Ultraviolet Blood Irradiation | Riordan Clinic

Review of KU Integrative Medical Center- Naturopathy, functional medicine, and other quackademic medicine at the University of Kansas Medical Center - RESPECTFUL INSOLENCE

Riordan at KU: Riordan Fund

Naturopathy at Riordan: Naturopathic Medicine - Riordan Clinic

Director for KU Integrative Medicine: Yoon Hang "John" Kim, MD

I went to med school in KC and am familiar with KU in general as I did a few rotations there/at their clinics. I've heard the hospital as a whole is trying to emulate other programs like Mayo and Cleveland Clinic in terms of offering as many options to patients as possible (they were the local medical powerhouse expanding pretty rapidly in general). Most of the patients I saw during med school who had previously been to the integrative med clinic there had done stuff like acupuncture, massage, yoga, neurofeedback, etc to help with either mental illnesses, chronic pain, or soft tissue injuries along with some (mostly) reasonable nutritional modifications. So certainly alternative treatments, but nothing "way out there" in terms of the naturopathic stuff. It does seem like some of the newer people may be a bit more off the deep end though, as I saw 2 patients who had seen a fellow there and gotten some really strange treatment/advice. One was told they needed to replace the ventilation/AC units in their house and cars because they had mold counts in their blood that were too high. Idk if this is an outlier individual or if the whole clinic is moving more in that direction, but I don't think the entire clinic was crazy based on some of the patients I'd seen who had been patients there.

The only thing sketchy here is the jumping to conclusions without further research. The NIH has a center on Complementary and Integrative health and several schools / medical centers, most notably Georgetown, are doing research in the field. The purpose of the NIH center is put rigorous study to these supposed therapies and find out which have real value and how they can be integrated into overall medical care.

NCCIH

View attachment 236126

Checked their integrative med website because I was curious about what kinds of stuff was being done. Their "philosophy" page seems pretty reasonable and says they focus on lifestyle treatments like yoga, mindfulness, exercise, nutrition, etc. However, there are a few things I find undeniably questionable. The previously mentioned patient was a legit wtf moment for myself and my attending at the time (another KU physician). Their website also says they have an "online educational program" which is currently "being built", which makes me further question the validity of work being done/taught. I'm all for more research in these fields so long as it remains within reason, but I also don't think openly advocating for use of alternative treatments without research is something any major academic center should be doing given the current pseudoscientific climate that is too prevalent in our society.

 

[altblue]

The harm to worry about here isn't what the sugar pill might do to the patient, but what writing sugar pills does to the integrity of the profession. A vitamin C infusion is going to be harmless to the patient. We have to collectively agree not to abuse placebo like this, and only write what's been shown to work better than placebo.

Plus alternative medicine is often used in absence of effective treatment, like it's some sort of effective substitute... I'd have no real qualms if someone wanted to supplement their chemotherapy with homeopathy, rather than replace it.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Plus alternative medicine is often used in absence of effective treatment, like it's some sort of effective substitute... I'd have no real qualms if someone wanted to supplement their chemotherapy with homeopathy, rather than replace it.

IME (which is limited) and my wife's (which is extensive), it almost never stays as a supplement. My wife has had so many patients whose parents started them on homeopathy or acupuncture or whatever as a supplement to their chemo. As soon as the chemo starts getting hard and/or inconvenient, they stop coming to their appointments and just go full child abusers and give them homeopathy only. Sometimes, the threat of social services is enough to get them to come back, but she's had a lot of patients who ended up dying when they didn't need to because their parents just went full homeopathic idiocy.

 

[altblue]

IME (which is limited) and my wife's (which is extensive), it almost never stays as a supplement. My wife has had so many patients whose parents started them on homeopathy or acupuncture or whatever as a supplement to their chemo. As soon as the chemo starts getting hard and/or inconvenient, they stop coming to their appointments and just go full child abusers and give them homeopathy only. Sometimes, the threat of social services is enough to get them to come back, but she's had a lot of patients who ended up dying when they didn't need to because their parents just went full homeopathic idiocy.

Damn, that's pretty sad

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Damn, that's pretty sad

Yep. She had to take a break from clinical work because it was really emotionally taxing (not just that part, but that did play a part).

 

[Endoxifen]

I was at a neuro-oncology conference not too long ago and in one of the talks, the speaker began by saying 'we've all had pediatric cases where the parents took their kid to Mexico for some untested miracle cure, just to come back 6 months later with the patient untreated and the cancer massively progressed.' Almost everyone in the room nodded. That was honestly the most horrifying thing I've heard in my short time in medicine.

 

[gyngyn]

Folks with a lack of resources are especially vulnerable, but no income bracket is immune to the siren song of non-evidence based treatment...Steve Jobs.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Folks with a lack of resources are especially vulnerable, but no income bracket is immune to the siren song of non-evidence based treatment...Steve Jobs.

A friend of mine is an RN who got breast cancer. She went down to a “clinic” in Mexico where they did all kinds of ludicrous stuff. So even people in the medical field are susceptible.

Oh, and she also doesn’t vaccinate her kids.