Over the last four months I have witnessed my understanding of health and healing shift dramatically. I wasn’t always so sure that naturopathic medicine was what I wanted to pursue. I worried that I wouldn’t be respected or taken seriously as a healthcare provider. I wondered why the naturopathic curriculum claimed to be science and evidence based yet included homeopathy, which didn’t seem to fit into the principles of science I had learned in my biology classes. I was skeptical of learning therapeutics such as hydrotherapy which suggested that someone could heal simply by applying water in a particular way. I was not even ready to fully embrace some of the principles of naturopathic medicine, such as the “healing power of nature.” While I could see that most people recover on their own from colds or flu, having grown up in the current culture of mainstream medicine I had been hard wired to believe that in most cases the only way to get better is to give a pill or apply some type of therapy because the body is too weak and cannot heal itself.
Despite these uncertainties, when I visited campus I found that there was a wealth of information being shared and I wanted to soak it all up, regardless of whether I became a doctor. Students were learning so many possibilities for diagnosing or understanding what was happening with a patient, as well as learning an incredible spectrum of therapeutics. It was knowledge I could use to help myself to feel better, to be a resource if friends or family members became sick, and to one day be able to help my children when they were feeling unwell. Practicing naturopaths I spoke with seemed satisfied with the career choice, further convincing me that it was a good path to pursue. I had faith that during my four years of education I would gain the understanding and confidence to be able to defend why naturopathic medicine made sense.
For one of my classes this fall I had to read a book called Radical Healing by Rudolph Ballentine, MD. As I read it I began to realize that I resonated with certain ideas of holistic healing more than I had realized. The following statements by Dr. Ballentine began to shift how I viewed medicine.
1. “Remaining relatively healthy and only rarely venturing into illness situates our work in an arena quite different from what is customarily considered the proper domain of medicine.”
2 . “By the time changes are evident [by modern high-tech diagnosis], the disorder has progressed far enough to cause unnecessary suffering.”
Throughout my life I have often felt guilty for seeing doctors or other healthcare providers when I am very healthy for the most part. I’ve worried that I’m making a bigger deal out of something small or I should just suck it up and deal with discomfort. As I read Dr. Ballentine’s words I felt reassured that there was nothing wrong with my desire to feel fully well.
Anyone who wants to feel better should have the opportunity to seek a state of health and wellness with the assistance of a healthcare provider. Having worked in an ER I have seen many patients come in with distressing complaints, but when lab tests and imaging find no abnormality, patients are told there is nothing acutely wrong and shipped back to their primary care doctor or a new specialist, maybe with a prescription to relieve the symptoms for a short period of time. I get the sense that the same is true in primary care, particularly since doctors rarely have time to talk with patients to get a full picture of what is going on in their life. Complaints such as fatigue, dizziness, depression, anxiety, back pain, nausea, headaches and even abdominal pain may result in no abnormal finding or obvious quick fix but if people have taken time out of their day to seek care these symptoms are likely causing some distress. It has been clear to me for a long time that alternative care can be beneficial because of the range of options when pharmaceuticals or surgery are not appropriate, but over the past months I think that alternative care offers more than a wider variety of potentially effective therapies. Naturopathic medicine has the potential to create a shift in thinking towards acknowledging and respecting the signs that our body gives us that something is not quite right. It seems likely that certain chronic conditions or cancers could be prevented if we all had access to resources that gave us ideas or doctors who collaborated with us on how to shift elements of our lives or find therapies that could help our bodies thrive. One day perhaps patients will not be dismissed as quickly, but rather commended for seeking care that could allow them to live more happy and productive lives.
