words from a living legend

Accepting the death of osteopathy opens the way to a new-found inspiration that replaces an old pattern of grief. We have all lived in despair most of our professional lives, watching osteopathy be defiled, degraded, forgotton, and turned more and more into an allopathic clone. My goal in speaking is not to degrade, but to state the facts that we all know are true. I am not speaking out of anger, but out of love for the true spirit of osteopathy. I am also speaking out of the desire to see it living again....

...Osteopathy has died. All that remains is an empty skeleton of a dynamic gift we were once given. The essence of osteopathy is gone, extinguished. Today, we are relating to a ghost, co-dependently and neurotically fixated upon imitating allopathic medicine.

Many believe this is an illusion; they think that imitating allopathic medicine is an evolution for the profession. It is not an evolution. It is cloning. It is completely irresponsible to the suffering individuals in this world to reduce their options for healthcare, for healing.

Osteopathy is an alternative method of practicing medicine. It was founded by an MD who saw the necessity for a safer, more holistic profession. Osteopathy was a gift to humanity. It was there to help. We have allowed ourselves to fail in our responsibilities to our fellow man...Osteopathy is gone. It has died. Many will point to OMM as Osteopathy; however useful, OMM is not osteopathy. Osteopathic practice is for the treatment of all diseases, not just somatic dysfunction of the neuromusculoskeletal system. OMM and the AAO are in fact the only campfires still burning on the vigilant plains of waiting...for a change to free Osteopathy, to allow it to resurrect itself to serve humanity...

The few students who really want Osteopathy and who don't lie on their applications spend their free time trying to find Osteopathy -- but it's gone. [The school administrations] do not understand that they are not giving the general public the gift of Osteopathy; the schools are teaching allopathic medicine. ...we NEED the alternative of Osteopathy.

But the dilemma is: who remembers...the full sense of Osteopathy.

Dr. James Jealous DO