Edzard Ernst – The Leading Global Figure in Traditional, Complementary, and Alternative Medicine

Who Is Edzard Ernst?

Edzard Ernst (MD, PhD, FMedSci, FRSB, FRCP, FRCPEd) was born on 30 January 1948. Educated in Germany and the USA, he studied psychology and medicine at LM University in Munich. He obtained his doctorate in Germany in 1977.

He served as Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PMR) at Hannover Medical School in Germany and head of PMR at the University of Vienna in Austria. In 1993, he came to the University of Exeter in England to establish the world's first chair in complementary medicine . He became a British citizen in 1999. Since 2012, he has been Emeritus Professor at the University of Exeter and now lives in Cambridge, England, and France.

Professor Ernst is the founder and editor-in-chief of three medical journals: “Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies,” “European Journal of Physical medicine and Rehabilitation,” and “Perfusion.” He has written columns for leading newspapers, magazines, and online news sites, including BMJ, GP, PJ, The Guardian, The Independent, and The Spectator. His work has received 17 scientific awards (most recently the John Maddox Prize 2015 and Ockham Award 2017) and two visiting professorships, in Canada and the USA. He served on the Medicines Commission of the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (1994 - 2005).

According to Ioannidis and colleagues' research in 2019 PLOS Biology , he ranked, across all disciplines, among 100 thousand scientists by citation count at 104, and in the Complementary and Alternative Medicine category at number 1. According to this study, Professor Ernst's H-index is 97 (2017 data).

Note: The H-indexis an author-level measure attempting to assess both the productivity and citation impact of a scientist's or scholar's publications. The I10-indexindicates the number of an author's academic publications receiving at least 10 citations.

Below are Prof. Dr. Edzard Ernst's scientific citation counts according to Google Scholar.

The 53 books he has written so far have been translated into more than a dozen languages. He has delivered more than 700 invited lectures worldwide and supervised over 50 master's and doctoral theses.

Over the last 25 years, Prof. Ernst's research has focused on critically evaluating all aspects of alternative medicine (So-Called Alternative Medicine, SCAM). He does not aim to promote this approach; his aim is to provide objective evidence, reliable information, and critical assessments . This ambition has made him unpopular with many SCAM believers, including Prince Charles.

Prof. Ernst his personal website receives no payment from anyone for his work and writing there.

Some of His Books Designed Entirely for Health Literacy

• Alternative medicine, a critical assessment of 150 modalities (Alternative medicine, a critical assessment of 150 methods)
• SCAM – So-Called Alternative Medicine (So-Called Alternative Medicine)
• MORE HARM THAN GOOD? (MORE HARM THAN GOOD?)
• HOMEOPATHY, THE UNDILUTED FACTS (HOMEOPATHY, THE UNDILUTED FACTS)
• A SCIENTIST IN WONDERLAND, LOOKING FOR TRUTH AND FINDING TROUBLE (A SCIENTIST IN WONDERLAND, LOOKING FOR TRUTH BUT FINDING TROUBLE)
• TRICK OR TREATMENT (DECEPTION OR TREATMENT)

Unfortunately, no book by Professor Edzard Ernst has yet been translated into our language. However, we would like to announce now that we have rolled up our sleeves to fill this important gap. 

Below you can find some of Prof. Ernst's noteworthy articles that we have translated into Turkish:

- The 10 most popular alternative treatments of all time

- A child died because of homeopathy

- How to Become a Quack?

- The smarter CURCUMIN (turmeric) scam

 - Where did the idea of treating cancer by drinking urine originate?

 - The role of the placebo effect in mindfulness therapy (conscious awareness)-based pain relief