One thing I have noticed when talking to potential patients lately is that our society tends to overvalue specialists. A common question I get is, "what do you specialize in?" and people's reaction to my desire to work in Primary Care is bewilderment. Yes, I have my interests: sports medicine, gastrointestinal health, etc., but I just enjoy helping people with a diverse set of presenting symptoms. I find it is exciting and gratifying.
In actuality, Primary Care is a specialty too. In fact, an expert generalist can save a person a lot of pain, time and unnecessary referrals. Of course there is a very important place for specialists, but we need to put a greater value back on general practitioners.
This is one thing I love about naturopathic doctors. We can use a number of tools in Primary Care that work well and are often safer than a conventional approach. We can utilize botanicals, nutrition and supplements, adjustments of the spine, acupuncture, and counseling all with one patient - if it is necessary. Possibly the greatest thing about naturopathic doctors is we do not utilize these modalities in isolation but we understand how each fits together to help the patient.
2 comments:
Generalist or not, what is most important in assessing the sick patient? Nature at its root teaches us cause and effect. The specialist MD may only concentrate on a specific functional/physiological/anatomical area of the human body and the ND generalist may concentrate on the whole patient, but what does that really mean if underlying cause and effect is not fully appreciated on either side? Certainly nutritional deficiencies indicate pernicious causes to patient suffering, but why the use of pharmacologically or toxicologically active herbal products. An herbal product is a drug, not a functional food, and used principally for medicinal purposes. So how is the action of an herbal different than that of drug when it comes to correction of disease causation or susceptibility?
Also without specializing in any one field such as acupuncture or chiropractic which can take years if not decades to master in full time practice, how could any practitioner make the competent decision as to what modalities were effective to the full extent as to what that modality might accomplish?
What knowledge is granted to an ND as to how all of these modalities fit together? How is an appreciation of complexity addressed through cause and effect if basic principals of how and why we as humans fall ill is not initially established. We are not deficient in drug products, thus their use mitigates, manipulates and suppresses symptom expression. Dietary therapy addresses deficiencies but not causes of disease which are primarily epigenetic or toxic in nature. So just because a practitioner can generally address a case, does not provide for a causative correction of disease if no basic understanding of natural laws is disabused or not applied.
but what does that really mean if underlying cause and effect is not fully appreciated on either side? Certainly nutritional deficiencies indicate pernicious causes to patient suffering
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