Peace of mind… not cake.

The challenge this month is “self”- which means I have to put myself through the same gauntlet as what I anticipate I will make my patients do when I’m a doctor.  I had my first post all written out about changing my diet by very VERY carefully tracking my macronutrients so I can attempt to obtain the body I want/had when I was younger (really profound and deep, I know. But what are you going to do? I’m still a woman).  I had confidence. I could do this. This was going to be cake. Notice the past tense.

Note to self: cupcakes are NOT part of diet.

Then I got a phone call today about how the original macro count (short for macronutrients: carbs, protein, and fat) was wrong for my body type and we are upping my protein. So now I’m staring 67 grams of protein A MEAL in the face. Don’t know where this number came from; don’t know how I’m supposed to achieve it. Don’t know anything except someone smarter than me in matters of diet (right now. Watch your back Chris- I’m coming for you) is telling me to do something really overwhelming and foreign.

This is the guy I was referring to. Embarrassing ,right?

But this is good right? This is how my patients will feel: frantically searching recipe sites and plugging them into FitClick to see what the macros for each are. Then desperately adding and deleting ingredients until all numbers are satisfied. Needless to say, I’m overwhelmed.

Still not part of diet. Sad face.

So the lesson learned: do some leg work for your patients. This diet/lifestyle change stuff is overwhelming and crazy scary. I’ve changed my diet multiple times and I still want to cry right now (now that I think of it, I think I want to cry every time my diet gets changed- apparently I don’t like change** note to self: topic for another date). If you are going to ask your patients to adhere to some sort of diet, have some recipes written out for them to get them started. It definitely gives them some piece of mind and turns a mountain into a molehill.

Welcome to the Dark Side… if you’re not gluten free, we have cookies…

Recently I’ve become aware of the dark side of being a medical student. My husband calls it “The Burden of Knowledge”. It goes something like this: in a conversation, a person is complaining of a random ache or pain. Your brain, while also trying to be as sympathetic as possible, automatically goes to a long list of differential diagnoses and before you can catch yourself, you start asking questions to narrow it down. Ultimately, because the worst pathologies are the most memorable, you decide on the worst outcome possible.

At this point in my education, this becomes obnoxious in a couple ways. First, your friend didn’t even ASK you to start diagnosing. They were just making conversation and you HAD to take it to that level. Seriously, my brain is like a dog chasing a car. It just can’t stop itself. Second, even if I DID manage to elicit a diagnosis: first, I can’t tell you what I think and second, I couldn’t do anything about it if I could! You feel a momentary glimmer of pride and doctor-ness, only to have it come crashing down when you realize that yes, you figured this out, but NOW what are you going to do?

Well Crap.

Another thing that totally kills your self-esteem is when family comes to you asking for your “medical opinion”. Right now guys, my “Medical opinion” definitely belongs with quotes around it- and those sarcastic quotation marks too. Also, even with family, that “medical opinion” comes with the legal disclaimer that makes your family’s eyes glaze over or roll back in their heads. Please don’t sue guys!

Please don’t sue guys!

The last, and most sobering, aspect of the burden of knowledge is when you are right (sounds like a good thing, but you are SO wrong, my friend). Recently, I found out my grandma was in the hospital. She had some preexisting health issues that I was aware of but, that wasn’t the problem. My brain, faster than I even realized, immediately scrolled through an apparently premade list of differentials. And I selected the worst one (call me a fatalist).

The next day, I got an update on my grandma. I was right. That was the WORST feeling in the world. I know it’s impossible, but I honestly felt like it was my fault. I felt I caused the progression of her disease and now her time was limited. By just verbalizing my thought process, I made the worst happen. I was the biggest jerk in the world.

This is what people don’t warn you about. They don’t warn you that you are now equipped to accidentally diagnose someone correctly, when that diagnosis is the LAST thing you want for the person. They don’t warn you of that heavy feeling you can’t shake when you know something is seriously wrong with a family member and can’t say anything.

And they don’t warn you that it will feel like it is your fault.

Palate Cleanser

Paradigms Part 2

So in part 1, we looked at what paradigms are, how naturopathy and allopathy relate, and how my world was turned upside down. Now we are going to relate it to my journey in medical school!

I’ve always been really middle of the road. I said it in my admissions interview, and I’ve said it up until Dr. Sensenig’s lecture: Those who think one form of medicine is better than the other are ignoring the greatness of both. I won’t lie, I still sometimes fantasize about what I would be learning in regular medical school (it helps I have a friend who keeps me in the loop) and when I find a particularly outspoken zealot of naturopathic medicine, I wonder if those types of people exist in the Harvard’s and U of A’s of the world.

Dr. Sensenig’s lecture made me realize, because I understand naturopathy and I understand the limitations of allopathic medicine that I’m actually fully submerged in the new paradigm. There is a reason we can’t “cure” cancer and that diseases that aren’t caused by microbes exist. To me, it all comes down to the source and understanding of the human body. Diabetes isn’t caused by some diabetes bacteria or virus; it’s caused by abuse of our bodies. Most cancers aren’t caused by microbes (although some are), but they are caused by our unnatural environment and byproducts of our lifestyles. I don’t think anyone could really argue any of those points.

This realization made me incredibly uncomfortable. I’m a hardcore commitment-phobe. And I thought I was special because I didn’t automatically boo the antibiotics when they were brought up and didn’t automatically cheer the natural cancer remedies that were presented. I understood (or thought I did) why people would choose one form of medicine over the other. But again, by even believing I understood the ideas behind both; I was fully submerged in the ideas of naturopathy.

So while I’ve always labeled myself as a middle of the road/ pacifist/ fence sitter; it turns out I was decidedly on one side of the fence. Wow. I’ve admitted it outloud (ish). And it feels good. I can move on. I can now, instead of devoting my attention to questioning why certain decisions are made medically on the allopathic side of the fence, devote my attention to making sure these same decisions (although different tools used) are not made on my side of the fence- of preserving the main ideas of my medicine, as I see it.

In conclusion, I think I will still be the naturopath that doesn’t shy away from prescribing pharmaceuticals when needed. But I also think I am now equipped with the analytical thinking necessary to make sure I don’t start treating naturopathic medicine as “green allopathy”. I can really look at each modality and question it with, “how exactly is this addressing the source of the problem?” because, honestly, many things I’ve learned, even in naturopathic medicine, aren’t addressing the source of diseases and illness.

Paradigms…

 

The idea of paradigms is an interesting one. About a month ago, I went to a weekend seminar presented by Dr. Sensenig. To put it bluntly, he blew my mind. My ideas, or paradigms, were shifted in a moment. My entire world view changed in a second. One idea pushed me over the edge to naturopathy.

                Paradigms are defined by as a “philosophical and theoretical framework of a scientific school or discipline within which theories, laws, and generalizations, and the experiments performed in support of them, are formulated” (Merriam-Webster).  Keep this definition in mind because it explains the idea perfectly (as definitions are apt to do).

                He likened naturopathy and allopathy as a round earth/flat earth paradigm. Think back to hundreds of years ago when the earth was generally accepted as flat. Was long distance travel and exploration an option? No, it wasn’t. By extension, was discovering more about our solar system, our earth, and our oceans an option? No. So scientific thinking and learning had capped off. We knew about gravity, but couldn’t know about how the earth’s core affects it. We knew about sea faring, but couldn’t really push our knowledge and ability to an extreme. Then, people came along and started positing that the earth was round. Understand how that changed everything! Science was again able to progress and we were able to discover new lands, planets, and species. Dr. Sensenig said that there is no linear growth of scientific progress. Scientific progress behaves very linearly until the limits of the current paradigm are reached, then it is going to flat line until the paradigm is changed. Which brings us back to the definition of paradigm. It is the ideas AND the experiments accompanying them. The idea comes BEFORE the action/theories/proof. It really is that old quote, “change the way you look at the world and you will change the world” (goose bumps, right?).

                Dr. Sensenig went on to talk about how once a new paradigm is taking root, there is no way to communicate across paradigms. Part of it is people’s obstinacy. Another part is people’s fear of unknown and new things. And lastly, oftentimes, there just isn’t vocabulary to express and teach other people. If you understand a new paradigm, you can understand the old. However, if you only understand the old paradigm, you can’t understand the new. This explains why we keep experimenting for different “cures” for cancer, when we need to address lifestyles instead.

                This stuck with me. I truly believe that allopathy is the old paradigm. Not because it’s useless and outdated, because it isn’t. There is a perfectly good place for allopathic medicine. It’s saved my family’s lives. I worked in an Emergency Department for 2 years. I saw those wonders first hand, but I’ve also seen the failings of it. I’ve seen the detriments of our dependence on allopathic medicine. I’ve seen the joys and sorrows of allopathic medicine.

And now we come to where my world was rocked…

 In part 2!!!!

Origin Story

So I figured a good way to get my blog off and running is to start at the beginning: How I discovered Naturopathic medicine. Pretty much it all relates to books, soap, and diets.

When I was in high school, I really wanted to be a forensic pathologist. Kinda morbid, but I was obsessed with those Kay Scarpetta books. But I was a little burnt out on school at the time (senioritis big time) and if I went down that path, I was staring 14 more years of school in the face. So that dream went on the back burner.

Fitting

Years later, I was pretty much pushed into a soap store called Lush. The cool thing about this store is that all the products have pronounceable ingredients like rose, lavender, and shea butter. I religiously shopped there for years and finally had an opportunity at a job. I flourished there and learned about the amazing things natural substances could do for your skin. I knew botanicals had to offer more, but I didn’t like the information I was finding on the internet.

Grapefruit goodness to scrub your body and face!

Lastly, Diets: When I met my husband I was overweight. I had developed really bad eating habits and wasn’t happy with myself. Good thing for me (sometimes), he is a personal trainer – trust me, its more of a curse than a blessing sometimes. So after I asked him, he helped get my weight under control through changing my diet as I refused to exercise at the time. I was astounded at the changes my body went through. I also realized I was happier, had more energy, and just felt amazing. All this from just eating good food and tinkering with my macro-nutrients.

So these ideas were floating around in my head… if only there was a profession that combined them! Good thing my husband is also connected. He knew an ND in Tucson that took me under his wing. He described what he learned, what he did, and his ideas to me. After talking to a (gasp!) pharmacist and talking to the ND, I knew which route I needed to take. I’ve seen the achievements and the downfalls of allopathic medicine and I needed something more. Naturopathic medicine gave that to me.

Two to three years later after that conversation with my ND friend, I’m in my second year at Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine. I never knew I’d learn so much. I’m not only learning how to think like a doctor, but I’m learning both conventional and awesome alternative ways to help people. My favorite thing is to hear from complete strangers how Naturopathic medicine has changed their lives. There is nothing better than to hear their positive experiences with the medicine you’ve decided to dive wholeheartedly into. 

One of my favorite quotes.