I’m a Traditional Naturopath (aka natural health practitioner) and I believe that each of us should have a team of experts as resources to help us manage our health over our lifetime. When I say team of experts, I don’t mean a primary care doctor, a cardiologist, and a gastroenterologist. The experts I want on my health care dream team include a conventional medical doctor or specialist, a natural health practitioner, an acupuncturist, an Ayurvedic practitioner, an osteopath or chiropractor, an energy worker, and maybe even a Shaman. As a naturopath, I use non-conventional assessment techniques like iridology, sclerology, muscle response testing, hair, tongue and nail analysis among others, and spend lots of time with clients starting with 2 hours at the first appointment (www.epiphany-health.com/holistic-health-appointment/). I strive to get to know my client’s constitution, history and lifestyle to do what natural health does best – utilize a unique paradigm to interpret patterns in order to understand the root cause of illness. This paradigm is very different from how a conventional medical doctor views the body, so I believe that everyone should have a natural health and other non-conventional practitioners on their team in order to get alternative perspectives on the root cause of illness and how to remedy it.
Across many institutions we see the benefits of teams with members that have different backgrounds, ethnicity, and life experiences. Studies show these teams are better at solving complex, non-routine problems. One key ingredient, according to Scientific America article by Katherine Phillips, October, 2014 (www.scientificamerica.com), is that these teams of people with different backgrounds bring new information, but most importantly, ‘simply interacting with individuals who are different forces group members to prepare better, to anticipate alternative viewpoints and to expect that reaching consensus will take effort’. As a former project manager in which I led teams of cross-functional staff, frequently with different goals and perspectives, I can attest that facilitating these team members is not easy, but consistently their decisions are always more informed, insightful, and result in a longer-term positive results.
I want this same innovation and alternative viewpoints on my own personal health care team so that I know I’m getting the optimal intervention tailored to me and my health issues. It’s my dream that if ever I had significant health care need that my team would come together with mutual respect and facilitate a discussion on developing a customized program with the end goal in sight.
I believe my team of health care experts might be better suited than other homogeneous teams, to think through all the pros and cons and options for handling an acute situation while considering long-term outcomes and issues. I believe this team might be better at identifying less-invasive steps to remedy a situation before more invasive steps (start with a change in diet or lifestyle or herbal intervention, before medications with side effects or surgery). Lastly, but most importantly, I want my team striving to find the root cause of illness rather than focused on symptom management.
If a client of mine is in a car accident, I would suggest a call to 911 or conventional medical practitioners before calling me, for sure. However, when discussing interventions that may have long-term implications, I think more perspectives at the table are better for the long-term.
In my mind’s eye, my health care team dream sequence has me waking up in my hospital bed and seeing a team that maybe looks something like the Village People band from the 1970s staring back at me http://www.officialvillagepeople.com/ . I would then know I was in good hands.
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