My offer to educational institutions of alternative medicine

Getting good and experienced lecturers for courses is not easy. Having someone who has done more research than most working in the field and who is internationally known, might therefore be a thrill for students and an image-boosting experience of colleges. In the true Christmas spirit, I am today making the offer of being of assistance to the many struggling educational institutions of alternative medicine .

A few days ago, I tweeted about my willingness to give free lectures to homeopathic colleges (so far without response). Having thought about it a bit, I would now like to extend this offer. I would be happy to give a free lecture to the students of any educational institution of alternative medicine. I suggest to

do a general lecture on the clinical evidence of the 4 major types of alternative medicine (acupuncture, chiropractic, herbal medicine, homeopathy) or

give a more specific lecture with in-depth analyses of any given alternative therapy.

I imagine that most of the institutions in question might be a bit anxious about such an idea, but there is no need to worry: I guarantee that everything I say will be strictly and transparently evidence-based. I will disclose my sources and am willing to make my presentation available to students so that they can read up the finer details about the evidence later at home. In other words, I will do my very best to only transmit the truth about the subject at hand.

Nobody wants to hire a lecturer without having at least a rough outline of what he will be talking about – fair enough! Here I present a short summary of the lecture as I envisage it:

I will start by providing a background about myself, my qualifications and my experience in researching and lecturing on the matter at hand.

This will be followed by a background on the therapies in question, their history, current use etc.

Next I would elaborate on the main assumptions of the therapies in question and on their biological plausibility.

This will be followed by a review of the claims made for the therapies in question.

The main section of my lecture would be to review the clinical evidence regarding the efficacy of therapies in question. In doing this, I will not cherry-pick my evidence but rely, whenever possible, on authoritative systematic reviews, preferably those from the Cochrane Collaboration.

This, of course, needs to be supplemented by a review of safety issues.

If wanted, I could also say a few words about the importance of the placebo effect.

I also suggest to discuss some of the most pertinent ethical issues.

Finally, I would hope to arrive at a few clear conclusions.

You see, all is entirely up to scratch!

Perhaps you have some doubts about my abilities to lecture? I can assure you, I have done this sort of thing all my life, I have been a professor at three different universities, and I will probably manage a lecture to your students.

A final issue might be the costs involved. As I said, I would charge neither for the preparation (this can take several days depending on the exact topic), nor for the lecture itself. All I would hope for is that you refund my travel (and, if necessary over-night) expenses. And please note: this is time-limited: approaches will be accepted until 1 January 2015 for lectures any time during 2015.

I can assure you, this is a generous offer that you ought to consider seriously – unless, of course, you do not want your students to learn the truth!

(In which case, one would need to wonder why not)