Why an ER Doctor Advocates for Holistic Healing?

"Why do you talk about holistic healing? Aren't you an ER doctor?"

I talk about it because my responsibility as a doctor is to help people heal. As a physician who practices what we call modern medicine–more specifically allopathy, which emphasizes pills, surgery, and vaccines–I realize our focus has largely been more on treatment than healing and cure. This is inevitable when our medical philosophy focuses on human beings as being composed of physical parts.

Still, my practice of emergency medicine, and the greater practice of allopathy as a whole, does have an important role to play in healing. When I say that, the next question/statement I get is: "

"Okay, so you're for complementary medicine then?" 

Well, that depends. I'm not on board with the usual language of complementary medicine, because it is misleading and largely a form of marketing that holistic traditions have had to play along with. The reason for that is we have misunderstood #complementarymedicine to be holistic medicine, whereas in fact #allopathy is the true complementary medicine to be used as and when needed. When it's used as primary medicine, we get #health disasters. When it's used as complementary medicine, we will have a beautiful health system focused on #healing and #cure.

The next question arises:

"Aren't you just talking about integrative medicine? Just keep it simple."

Not as is, because integrative medicine has not yet made crystal clear what the roles of different healing systems are. Even within #integrativemedicine, there are systems that are primary, and there are systems that are complementary. For example, allopathy is complementary because pills, surgeries, and vaccines should not be something we are aiming to do every day. They should be used as and when needed, and the more we develop health as individuals and a population, the less they will be needed. 

On the other hand, Nutrition Movement Connection Rest is something we can be doing every single day to heal and develop our potential. Even when we are using effective allopathic methods, they should be in addition to the primary practice of #Nutrition #Movement #Connection #Rest that is happening in that very moment. 

This kind of clarity to both call out the misunderstandings of allopathy and raise it to greater heights as complementary medicine has been lacking, not in small part due to the bullying and ignorance allopathy has demonstrated through name calling, appropriating funds for its own study rather than a fuller study of healing, conflating philosophy and science, and misappropriating the brand of #science to diminish other healing systems.

Once we clean all this up and get clear on what's happening and what is to come, we will raise all healing systems including allopathy to their full glory, people will heal from diseases en masse, we will soar beyond standard notions of integrative medicine, and we will realize wholeness as our nature. 

It's happening now.