I've changed my view of medicine over the years.. Well, truly, even during my studies I always had a different undertone than my classmates, but this variation and curiosity has since taken over my practice of medicine. It has challenged and changed me, my quality of life (I'll share more on this at a later date), my family's quality of life and eventually, overflowed into the lives of my patients.

Over time I have come to realize there's a name for it.. Actually a few names for it; Functional Medicine, Integrative Medicine, Holistic Medicine. Depending on who you ask, these vary slightly in their technical definition but their underlying cores are the same:

-the belief that patients are individuals and have their own unique biochemistry.

-the value of treating the root cause of illness instead and the illness itself. Re-read that.

-to get patients to their own optimal health instead of merely managing a chronic disease.

-and certainly endless others that we will explore over time.

I know plenty of people, physicians and patients alike, view this as "snake oil medicine," but that leaves me thinking, why is it considered hokey to refuse to believe that every patient's problems can be solved in 15 minutes?

In my opinion, this means conventional medicine is over simplifying the complexities of human physiology...

The longer I practice medicine the more I am questioning this paradigm. Quite frankly, prescribing psychiatric medications for my patients is a lot easier than understanding the biochemical reasons behind why they need them.

I hope this serves for a little insight into me and the journey that led me to my current place (all dimensions of it). I want to share some of my exploration into health here as well as some of of the progressive findings I've learned as an eternal student of this fascinating thing called the human body.

McCall McPherson PA-C