HOLISTIC MEDICINE
We Define Holistic Medicine as Dealing with the Whole Person
Embodying the concept of the whole person, holistic or integrative medicine seeks to balance the physical with the mental and spiritual to make a person healthy and well as a whole person.
Ignoring any constituent part will not achieve optimal balance. Focus on the Mind and Body predominate our protocols. Individualized and Personalized healthcare programs must operate outside of the current managed healthcare programs which dominate our healthcare system.
To obtain very personalized care you will need to seek out integrative and functional medicine practitioners who spend adequate time listening, understanding and addressing your needs.
We are not limited to what may be misunderstood as just energy medicine. There are those that call themselves holistic healers that are not really grounded in science and are often not credentialed or who are self proclaimed ‘’healers’’.
Integrative Medicine
Mind and Body Predominate Our Protocols
They are the ones with odd belief systems and are likely to do some pretty weird things as part of their diagnostic and treatment plans. I foremost want to dispel any misunderstanding of that here.
We are very grounded in both evidence based protocols along with observational learning after years and years as practicing healthcare providers.
We glean from both the standard conventional medical model (usually where practice guidelines are derived from peer-reviewed publications in medical journals) as well as from ‘’alternative sources’’ such as Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Ayurvedic practices along with Traditional Native medicine from around the globe.
We take a very critical look at the oldest and newest means of treating and preventing illness and as scientists will separate the chaff from the wheat so to speak for our patients.
Having personally trained in an allopathic school of medicine and taken care of patients in a very conventional way for 20 years of my career I did realize there was much more to offer patients.
A self devised curriculum of teaching myself Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) was a journey I have taken since 1998. I was then able to blend the best of both worlds to best serve my patients. I have taken great efforts to train and precept my fellow clinicians at CHM in this art/science as well.
In 2018 I established the Priority Health Academy, a school with a credentialing process to allow me to pass the fund of knowledge to other practitioners interested in they type of functional & integrative medicine. Our patients benefit from this type of training and exposure.
The process we take is very simple and cost effective. First and foremost we listen to our patients; we take rather extensive directed health histories and directed examinations.
Then we focus of advanced biomarker testing that has predictive value and will be used to map out a health plan for the year for our patients. We limit the amount of invasive and harmful procedures and testing (eg. ionizing radiation with traditional mammograms, etc.) and utilize Thermography (Thermoscans) and what is referred to as liquid biopsies such as gene expression test and such which are non-invasive ways to screen for cardiovascular disease and many cancers.
For example we do not want to only recommend a colonoscopy at age 50, just because. If our patient is low risk and it is time for colorectal cancer screening, then we use a blood test that is FDA approved and non-invasive and far less costly than a scope.
Another example is the annual screening mammogram that women have to go through. It is actually quite a dangerous test, exposing women to unnecessary radiation that can actually cause more breast cancers to develop and the scatter of radiation can harm the thyroid gland too.
The alternatives may be better in detecting cancers and will not expose women to radiation, thus reducing their risk for breast and thyroid cancers.
HOLISTIC MEDICINE FAQ
Holistic may have many meanings. One definition that comes to mind first may be Complimentary or Alternative Medicine, referring to those not trained as MDs necessarily but who practice a healing art that may be more weighted to energy medicine or herbals only. This model is not truly Integrative. At CHM, our centers have a different definition that may be said to be more Wholistic (the whole body). Meaning we take into consideration the body, mind, and spirit but embrace the VERY BEST of both worlds (Eastern/Alternative Medicine AND Modern Western Medicine). Our centers offer true integrative medicine; we do not turn our backs on either aspects of the two styles of healthcare delivery.
No, not necessarily since your regular doctor (PCP) is Western Trained and comes with some positives and offers things we don’t offer at our centers. We add to what they recommend with sometimes safer and more natural interventions and lifestyle changes. We also ”coach” and educate our patients more as we devote much more time to our encounters. Those patients that find it confusing or conflicted will often switch over to our style of medicine completely once they realize the positive impact on their health.
There are aspects of some energy medicine that utilize such instruments and also vibrational therapy with healing bowls, but in our center, we do not have practitioners trained in that sort of therapy and often will refer out when indicated or beneficial.
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