In 2022, a woman named Wendie Colter recalled a fantastical incident to an interviewer. Colter said she had “scanned” the body of a woman with wrist tendonitis “like an MRI”, seeing not only inflamed tendons, but also a healed wrist fracture, along with “a cloud of grief and emotional pain” around the woman’s wrist.
At the same time, Colter had a vision of the woman’s past experiences, including a breakup with a boyfriend and being struck on the wrist by an abusive parent. Colter concluded that the woman’s wrist was “holding onto . . . grief, emotion and physical trauma.”
She further “discerned some sleep and gut health issues” after “ask[ing] the [woman’s] body what it might want or need to find balance.” The woman, according to Coulter, confirmed certain aspects of her history and, after a few days, reported her wrist pain was gone.
Colter, who started out as an “energy healer”, told the interviewer that she had accomplished all of this in her work as a “medical intuitive”, performing “an intuitive assessment” of the woman’s “physical body and biofield”, a term she equates with the “chakra system” and “aura field”.
Medical (not!) intuitive
The National Organization for Medical Intuition (NOMI), which Colter heads, defines medical intuition as
a system of expanded perception gained through the development of the human sense of intuition. Medical Intuition is a process of intuitive observation and assessment of the physical body and energetic systems of the body.
As NOMI further explains, although the practice has intentionally chosen to use the word “medical”, it is not, in fact, “medical”:
Although Medical Intuition uses the word “medical,” it is not to be considered the practice of medicine, psychotherapy, or any other licensed healthcare practice, and is not a substitute for licensed medical or psychological care, diagnosis or treatment, but rather a skill intended to support all healthcare practices.
In actual practice though, as we shall see, medical intuitives very much intend for their “diagnoses” (just don’t call it that) to guide medical decision-making.
Color me doubtful
I don’t believe for one minute that Colter actually has the powers she describes, no matter how much she thinks she does, because:
- Well-controlled experiments refute the existence of a human “biofield” or “energetic system” of the kind she describes. For example, Emily Rosa famously demonstrated, in a 1998 study, published in JAMA, that “therapeutic touch” practitioners, who claimed the ability to feel and manipulate a human energy field, performed no better than chance.
- Instruments have never been able to detect this putative biofield.
- There is no plausible mechanism of action for the biofield.
- Numerous trials of biofield-based diagnostics and treatments, like reiki, fail to show any effect beyond placebo.
- Correlation is not causation. The fact that the woman’s tendonitis got better after a session with a medical intuitive is not evidence that the two are related.
- Resolution of the woman’s tendonitis has other, scientifically plausible explanations, like the natural fluctuation of symptoms.
- MRI-like vision is a comic book superpower, unknown to science.
(Did I miss anything?)
To be fair, it’s not hard to see why confirmation bias or other, more plausible, explanations for Colter’s perception of her abilities might elude her. A bio posted by a business she owns discloses no scientific or medical training.
In my view, Colter’s pretensions as a medical intuitive should be dismissed as pseudoscience. And certainly no physician should ever subject his patients to the indignities of this nonsense.
Integrative Medicine is all in
Unfortunately, the integrative medicine industry disagrees with me.
Integrative medicine (sometimes referred to as “IM”), as you may recall, is based on a two-part strategy of (1) rebranding standard healthcare practices (diet, exercise, stress-reduction) and approaches (holistic, whole-person, patient-centered) as “integrative”, and (2) incorporating pseudoscience (e.g., homeopathy, acupuncture, naturopathy) into medical practice. Its reliance on pseudoscience, and a decidedly superciliousness in its attitude toward “conventional” medicine, has made IM the topic of numerous SBM posts.
In today’s post, we’ll see how the integrative medicine industry, yet again, provides support for a practice that should be rejected as quackery, one more telling example of its unprincipled disregard for science.
Familiar bedfellows
Colter’s interview, which offered zero pushback on her incredible claims, was with an online publication called Integrative Practitioner, an enterprise helmed by the same outfit that puts on the annual Integrative Healthcare Symposium. This year’s symposium featured familiar names from the SBM integrative medicine files: Jeffrey Bland and Dr. David Katz, as well as a physician who worked with Dr. Nicholas Gonzales on the infamous “Gonzales Regimen” for cancer.
According to the Integrative Practitioner article, Colter, “MCWC [Master Certified Wellness Coach], CMIP [Certified Medical Intuitive Practitioner]”,
serves on the Bioenergy & Health Committee of the Integrative Health Policy Consortium (IHPC), was chosen as rotating faculty for the Integrative Medicine Elective Rotation (IMER) program at the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine [at the University of Arizona] and is an educational contributor for the Academy of Integrative Health & Medicine Fellowship.
In other words, Colter, and her claims to medical intuition, have been embraced by the stalwarts of the integrative medicine industry.
The IHPC heavily promotes the “integration” of acupuncturists, chiropractors, naturopaths, and functional medicine practitioners into mainstream medicine and pushes the government to force public and private insurers to fully cover their services, no matter the lack of evidence of safety and effectiveness or, for that matter, scientific plausibility.
The Weil Center is part of what we at SBM call quackademic medicine and its namesake, Integrative Medicine guru Dr. Andrew Weil, has been the subject of several posts. The Center’s Integrative Medicine Rotation allows medical students and residents to “explore” quackery like homeopathy and energy medicine (which is where, I assume, Colter’s tutelage came in.)
Completion of The Academy of Integrative Health & Medicine [AIHM] Fellowship (now allied with Thomas Jefferson University) allows one to qualify for (the unfortunate) board certification in Integrative Medicine for physicians. The AIHM itself includes alternative medicine practitioners like chiropractors, acupuncturists and naturopaths, which led me to describe the acceptance of its fellowship into the bosom of MD board certification as
perhaps the apotheosis of the fetishization of alternative medicine by IM proponents.
Indoctrination
According to Colter, her IM students enthusiastically embraced her teachings:
The feedback from my integrative practitioner graduates is that . . . [using a medical intuitive] saves them so much time. They can quickly get to the root causes of issues and put together a tailored care plan. It’s cost effective as they can prioritize testing and treatments. They have also found that patient compliance can be enhanced by bringing awareness to the underlying energetic causes of their issues.
[An aside: Integrative medicine practitioners might want to consider how they would explain to a jury, under oath, on cross-examination by a plaintiff’s attorney, their decision to “save time”, “put together a tailored plan”, and “prioritize testing and treatments”, based on a medical intuitive’s advice.]
As mentioned, Colter is also the founder and CEO of the National Organization for Medical Intuition, an outfit whose
aim to integrate Medical Intuition into all forms of healthcare.
NOMI is assisted in its efforts by an Advisory Board that includes Leonard S. Wisnesski, MD, an endocrinologist and IM practitioner, who is on the faculty of George Washington University and the University of Colorado. He is also Chairman Emeritus of the Integrative Health Policy Consortium which, according to his bio, and as noted above, pushes legislation favorable to naturopaths and the like.
Learning pseudoscience for CE credit
Colter is also the CEO of The Practical Path, a medical intuition training program, which
offers a powerful skill set designed to provide fast, accurate intuitive health assessments. Identify the underlying causes of health issues to support and enhance whole-person health—body, mind, and spirit. [Emphasis in original.]
And:
Foundational training in intuitive assessments of the human biofield. The biofield is the electromagnetic field that surrounds and permeates the human body. The health of the biofield is believed to affect our daily energetic balance and well-being. [Link in original.]
Thus:
Imagine the possibilities of being able to intuitively pinpoint the root causes of illness, imbalance, and disease!
In sum, based on a “belief” (their word) in a “biofield,” which (as these researches concluded) “remains undemonstrated” and for which “no quality scientific work has established any clinically significant effect”, you’ll learn to “pinpoint” the “causes” of illness and disease. (Just don’t call it a “diagnosis”.)
Yet, in addition to support from the previously-mentioned IM establishment, Colter has, according to The Practical Path, presented to the UCLA Center for East-West Medicine, UC San Diego Centers for Integrative Health Grand Rounds, USC Institute for Integrative Health, the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine and Health, the Institute for Functional Medicine, as well as the University of Colorado med school and a Florida osteopathic school. The Practical Path’s home page displays the logos of several prominent educational institutions, among them UCLA and USC. (Whether with their permission or not, I don’t know.)
The California Board of Registered Nursing offers CE credit for The Practical Path’s courses. (As do chiropractic and acupuncture course accreditors, unsurprisingly.) The Practical Path is also an authorized vendor for the VA’s “Whole Health” program.
Tooth Fairy Science
The Practical Path touts two “extraordinary research results”:
In one study:
Certified graduates [of their program] show 94% accuracy in location and assessment of health issues, 98% accuracy in describing life experiences that may correspond to health issues, 94% consistency with known diagnoses, and more.
And in the second:
All of the physicians highly rated medical intuitive sessions as accurate, influential to their clinical process, would recommend using medical intuitives to colleagues, and would continue to use medical intuitives.
Both are excellent examples of Tooth Fairy Science and both were supported by the integrative medicine industry.
The first, “Assessing the Accuracy of Medical Intuition: A Subjective and Exploratory Study”, was published in the Journal of Complementary and Integrative Medicine. The authors are a Ph.D. who is the Director of the Center of Excellence for Research and Training in Integrative Health, Family Medicine and Public Health, at UC San Diego, and Colter.
The article is behind a paywall but, according to the abstract, medical intuitives, “scanned” 67 study participants in 30-60 minute sessions via phone or video. The intuitives’ conversations with participants were limited to “telling them information they were ‘seeing’ during the scanning process”. Afterwards, the participants filled out forms “documenting their assessment of the reading”, with the results as reported.
Of course, in addition to the incredible implausibility of such “scans” producing reliable information, an exploratory study is not evidence of the effectiveness of either medical intuition in general or The Practical Path’s training program in particular.
The second study, “Physician and Patient Perspectives of the Usefulness and Accuracy of Medical Intuition: A Prospective Pragmatic Trial”, consisted of medical intuitive remote “scans” of 40 patients referred to the study by six unidentified physicians recruited through contacts in the integrative medicine community. As with the first study, physicians and participants filled out assessment forms afterwards. Again, the study is not evidence of the effectiveness of medical intuition, which the authors themselves admit.
Also again, the integrative medicine industry supported this endeavor. The study was published in Global Advances in Integrative Medicine and Health, which is affiliated with the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine and Health. The authors, in addition to Colter, include the aforementioned Dr. Wisnessk, as well as a naturopathic doctor on the faculty of the Oregon Health & Science University.
Cow Pie
NOMI recognizes Edgar Cayce, a psychic and “medical clairvoyant” from the early 20th century, as a forefather of the modern medical intuitive. In his time, Cayce was regarded as a quack and was prosecuted for the unlicensed practice of medicine. Now his progeny teach medical residents and nurses.
Medical intuition is pseudoscience and has no place in medical practice. Yet, the integrative medicine industry, through its co-option of otherwise respectable medical institutions, creation of pseudoscience-promoting organizations, as well as support for, and publication of, trifling research, has created a “safe space” in which such practices can flourish and metastasize into the public body.
Or, as Dr. Mark Crislip more piquantly summarized the issue:
If you integrate fantasy with reality, you do not instantiate reality. If you mix cow pie with apple pie, it does not make the cow pie taste better; it makes the apple pie worse.
