Journey

Our Professional Journey

In our professional journey we both entered osteopathic medical school searching for a different approach to medicine. We had seen the conventional approaches to treatment of common medical illnesses work at times, but they also seemed to compound illness in other ways. Oftentimes these conventional approaches would result in more issues than they solved.

This conventional medical approach relied on probing with tests and studies, more than it relied on sitting down and really getting to know the patient. In the conventional model this is sufficient – if the physician asks a few pointed questions, then that is all you need, because you have diagnostic tests and guidelines to tell you how to treat the individual.

To us, this seemed like a conveyor belt, mass production approach to medicine. This is not how we wanted to be treated when we went to the doctor and certainly not how we wanted to treat others.

Expanding The Principles Of Conventional Medicine

Conventional medical wisdom apparently overlooked a fundamental part of the diagnostic process – getting to know the patient. It seemed impossible to fully understand what was wrong with an individual if you did not know much about the person you were talking to.

Our professional journey, through our osteopathic medical training, taught us to expand this diagnostic approach by getting to know the patient holistically. This approach enabled the integration of the patient’s unique needs into the diagnostic process.

Additionally, our professional training taught us to expand the parameters of treatment approaches. Conventional approaches seemed to use medications to demand the body respond in a specific way and to do all the healing work. This seemed to make little sense. We cut ourselves and usually we heal just fine – without intervention. This is incredible; why then did conventional medicine apparently turn away from the innate healing wisdom in the body, rather than working with it?

Dr. Andrew Taylor Still

The innate capacity of the body to heal was profoundly observed by Dr. Andrew Taylor Still, a frontier medical doctor, in the mid-1800’s. He and his students made a name for this new science of Osteopathy by successfully treating conditions such as asthma, tonsillitis, diabetes, epilepsy, diphtheria and even infectious diarrhea caused by cholera. Dr. Still and his students achieved this by applying common sense and working with the self-healing mechanism within each person.

Another revolutionary insight put forward by Dr. Still was that “the object of the physician is to find health – anyone can find disease”. That is to say, it is easy to label something as wrong and then treat that, but this is a short-sighted, incomplete view.

True healing requires us to see all that is working wonderfully in a person and where their body may need some help. If we can unburden the part of their system that is struggling and focus on allowing the full expression of their self-healing mechanism, then long lasting, self-sustained health can result.

Principles Of Osteopathy

Our professional journey is founded on and driven by the osteopathic wisdom purported by Dr. Still. It informs our extensive professional experience. Everything that we do in our personal lives also manifests these osteopathic principles. The key to understanding and applying Osteopathy lies in grasping the following principles and working with them on a daily basis;

Each person is a unit of body, mind and spirit
Each person has the ability to self-regulate and self-heal
The physical structure of the body and all its functions are inter-related
Rational treatment is based upon the above principles

Throughout our medical training we dove deeper and deeper into these principles each day. As we did, our lives changed for the better. We each had a deeper experience of the profound joy of being alive and our health continued to improve and then thrive.

Our osteopathic upbringing led us to courses and private offices, constantly exploring our newly discovered healing art. We continued our traditional medical training and found that the answer to most health issues was a unique application of the powerful combination of both conventional and natural healing.

After all, this is what Dr. Still suggested – the physician should learn from the patient and give them what they need, not what the physician thought the patient needed based upon a label they or someone else gave them.

Our Personal Journey

In our journey through medical school, we immersed ourselves in the teachings and philosophy of Dr. Still. We learned how Osteopathy was not only an incredible healing gift to the planet, but dovetailed wonderfully with how we live in our personal lives on a daily basis. These Osteopathic principles were also essential when grappling with our own personal health challenges, particularly tick-borne infections, which have impacted on us and our families.

Dr. Tom, when dealing with the symptoms of brain fog, fatigue, joint and muscle pain, was frustrated by the lack of a definitive explanation for his symptoms. After trying conventional medications, which did not help his symptoms and came with their own set of side effects, Dr. Tom started to explore health and wellness on a deeper level to attain healing.

This meant harnessing the power of nutrition through diet, by eating whole foods and incorporating foods such as red meat, cooked in such a way to retain its living properties. Dr. Tom also experienced how consistent, good quality sleep over an extended period of time was vital for rejuvenating the body. Additionally, he explored the benefits of intense physical exercise to calm and focus the mind, especially Ashtanga yoga. This helped to build physical stamina, as well as mental equanimity and emotional resilience. These lifestyle modifications, combined with conventional and natural anti-microbial treatments, allowed Dr.Tom to restore and maintain his health.

Our personal journey to health, also emphasized the importance of personal accountability and empowerment in our everyday lives – taking small steps each and every day can result in significant and sustained health benefits.

Manifesting Our Personal Journey In Our Professional Practice

Our personal experiences in re-establishing and maintaining good health, reiterated the principles of our professional osteopathic medical training – that the body has an innate capacity to heal. By listening to the body at the deepest level and not just rationalizing illness through a set of medical diagnoses and syndromes, we personally experienced how we can enable the body to express radiant health.

In our continued personal journey, we incorporate the principles of Osteopathy into our daily lives, in order to maintain physical, emotional and spiritual health. The combination of our personal and professional journeys has enabled us to understand, at a profound level, the multifaceted nature of illness and the diverse factors that promote lifelong health and wellness.

Our mission is to share our personal and professional experience with our patients and enable them to experience optimal, lifelong health.