Negotiating Integrative Medicine: A Framework for Provider–Patient Conversations

Efforts to integrate complementary and alternative medical (CAM) therapies into conventional medical settings are creating a variety of negotiation challenges between various stakeholders. Focusing on the two-party encounter between physician and patient offers a way to understand the application of principled negotiation to perhaps the most fundamental and emotionally charged place within the health care system in which the introduction of CAM therapies is likely to disrupt relationships and produce conflict. This article suggest ways in which the theory and analysis of principled negotiation can add to current liability and ethical frameworks, and might thereby contribute to optimal future health care by helping to wisely integrate CAM therapies into conventional medical care.