OrphanCrow > I have known of people who went to a healer first - their pain disappeared but their undiagnosed cancer didn't.
I agree with you in the sense that pain has a function that should be traced back to the source, if possible. Doctors are trained for that. It would be very, very stupid to simply get rid of pain without proper medical care for let's say, some broken bone.
In Holland, we've had a notorious case of Jomanda, a spiritualist and healing medium who got in trouble after the death of actress Sylvia Millecam:
wiki: In 2001 Jomanda gave medical and spiritual advice to the popular Dutch actress Sylvia Millecam, who later died of cancer. In 2004 the Dutch Health Inspectorate filed suit against Jomanda claiming that she and three alternative therapists misled Millecam by claiming that the actress was merely suffering from an inflammation.
On the other hand, half the nation where I live thrives on pills and pain killers, it's an entire industry by itself which shows how much we are fighting symptoms instead of seeing through what is really going on. There's so much we still don't know. Both sides seem to have their limitations, maybe we will reach some widely accepted hybrid form some day, but hey, for now my healing lady saved me some paracetamol/acetaminophen