As cliche as it sounds, I always wanted to be a doctor. I was one of the nerdy, focused kids who knew what they liked and what they wanted early. I guess you can say it made it somewhat easy for my parents to guide me, essentially since i was self-guided.
I always imagined doctors to be like these great wise people who were generous, kind and understanding. I was big into the old-time country docs that knew generations of families. This is what I wanted to become.
Boy, was I sorely mistaken. I went through high school easily, raced through college in 3 years, and jumped into conventional medical school in Westchester, NY. When I got there, I started loading my days with classes and my nights with studying. More and more, I was learning how dehumanizing medicine was for the patient. Where was the kindness? the understanding? The personalization?
To add insult to injury, my college career contained mostly anthropology classes that really focused on food, culture and the understanding of health & medicine. This made me want to incorporate all what I learned in college with the medicine I learned. But conventional medical paradigm had no room for that.
I tried “regular” medical school, but I was upset by that, I found Naturopathic medical schools (thank goodness), and sure enough they embraced not only the understanding of the medical knowledge of the body, including anatomy, physiology, diagnosis, lab work, but added all the wonderful classes like that of the use of herbs, acupuncture, chiropractic, nutrition, etc.
I loved it for awhile, but again became disenchanted. I wanted to know old stuff, the old way of thinking without the use of labs, blood-work, or MRI’s. How did the old docs do it? I wanted to learn.
So my weekends, days-off, and holidays included seminars, classes, and reading lots and lots of books. I started collecting (husband says “hoarding” but I beg to differ) old, dusty books that held relevant info. Knowledge that really informed a decently smart person how to address almost anything naturally, really naturally. These extracurricular activities gained me access to my deeper skills of observation, deduction and reasoning.
So far what i’ve learned:
Most conventional docs don’t use their skills of observation (how can they if they spend only 10 mins with you)
Any new diagnosis test or lab so far still comes up with the same info the old school docs of the early 1900’s had the ability to conclude without those tests
“Innovative” natural remedies that are “discovered” are the similar or even the same remedies already used and found out by many peoples all over the world for hundred’s if not thousands of years
You can’t simply replace or swap a pharmaceutical medicine with a holistic remedy. A disease-state can not to be fixed or managed. People need help in toto, their whole body does.
– Not all holistic, functional or naturopathic practitioners practice the same. Most use the common, modern tools and have lost the art of truly being holistic. Also most use synthetic vitamins.
There’s more, but i don’t want to bore you. As time goes on, I’ll add more and more to the blog, I want this to be a place for you to learn and equip yourself with the knowledge I accrued in order for you to wade through the murky waters of modern holistic health information. That’s just a little bit about me.
Below are links to naturopathic schools that are in the United States. Find out if this something right for you, if you are interested in doing what I do.
Bastyr University. … https://bastyr.edu/academics/naturopathic-medicine National University of Natural Medicine. … https://nunm.edu/ National University of Health Sciences. … https://www.nuhs.edu/academics/college-of-professional-studies/naturopathic-medicine/ Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine & Health Sciences. https://www.scnm.edu/ University of Bridgeport NMC https://www.bridgeport.edu/academics/schools-colleges/school-of-naturopathic-medicine/naturopathic-medicine-nd