Many of the personality traits and behaviors that help doctors survive the rigors of their training and the stresses of their practices also make it very difficult for doctors to relate to their patients, colleagues and loved ones.
The specific treatment a doctor gives is only a small part of the total clinical experience. The key to creating an effective healing experience is to create a vision that reaches below the surface of conscious awareness, where 95% of what we take in is processed. To give patients a nurturing, healing experience, we need to create nurturing, compassionate, empowering input that touches people on many different levels.
The US spends 99 cents of its health care dollar on end-stage treatment and hardly a penny on prevention; as a result we’re facing an unprecedented burden of chronic disease that claims lives and threatens our economic future. Some of the best minds in medicine are now working to put proactive prevention at the center of American medicine.
In his new book, Finding Balance in a Medical Life, Dr. Lee Lipsenthal contends that doctors bring about much of their own unhappiness through controlling, perfectionistic and workaholic attitudes. Drawing from a wide range of psychological practices and spiritual traditions, Dr. Lipsenthal provides insights and practical tools to help fellow physicians find joy and fulfillment in their personal and professional lives.
Now more than ever, the nation needs health care systems that focus on prevention. Equally pressing is the need to restore economic viability to primary care and rebuild physician-patient relationships. The changes will only come when doctors re-define their professional values and restructure their practices accordingly. Dr. Elson Haas, a holistic pioneer with more than 30 years’ experience, reflects on the values underlying his thriving practice.
Healthy soil is the foundation of healthy food, which is the foundation of healthy humans, says Michael Abelman, a veteran organic farmer who believes farming has a lot more in common with medical practice than most people realize.
The cholesterol model of heart disease, which labels LDL as “bad” and HDL as “good,” has certainly helped drug companies sell a lot of statin medications. But has it really reduced the impact of obesity, heart disease and diabetes in this country? “Not really,” says Dr. Cleaves Bennett, one of the nation’s leading experts on hypertension, kidney disease and preventive medicine.
Internist Nancy Harris, MD, has learned a lot over her 15 years of providing holistic primary care services in remote regions of Tibet. Among the lessons, the power of nutrition to transform lives, and the power of human dignity to transcend adversity.
To a surgeon, it may be just another case. But to the patient, an operation—any operation, even a “minor” one—can be a profound and frightening experience, one that requires a deep level of trust. Judith Petry, MD, describes how her own experience under the knife opened her eyes to the need for greater reverence and respect in the operating room.
For much of its history, conventional allopathic medicine has used the language of warfare to describe its methods and practices. Adversarial thinking is deeply ingrained in medical culture. Gladys McGarey, MD, one of the pioneers of the holistic medicine movement, believes it is high time to change that.
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