When we went into Physician Assistant school, Camille and I had the same goal, as do most people going into the healthcare field- to help patients with their diseases. We graduated and started practicing wide-eyed, pig-tailed and naive to the world of modern medicine. People trusted us to listen to them about their health, to examine their bodies, to diagnose them with life-changing diseases and write prescriptions to treat those newly- diagnosed diseases. As time went on and we saw minimal changes in people's health, their waste line grow and their medication list get longer and longer, something was triggered in us. Are we approaching this wrong? Why are we placing a band-aid on our patients, when we practice and believe in a holistic approach to our own health?
Oh yeah, because of time constraints. Because it's impossible to spend twenty or thirty minutes with your patient educating them on their diseases and ways to reverse them naturally with foods rather than medicines when we're seeing 30-40 patients a day. We're not allowed to listen to our patients anymore and make a living. We go in, get their symptoms in 3-4 minutes, review their history, listen to their heart and lungs and prescribe a medication. We often spend more time documenting their visit, then we do seeing the actual patient. This isn't medicine in the traditional sense at all. How can we go on prescribing statins for cholesterol, knowing the possible significant side effects, knowing that patients can reverse cholesterol with the right foods? Why did we go into medicine in the first place? Controversial? Maybe. Radical? Not at all.
Over the past year, the answer became clear to both of us, band-aids fall off. Prescribing medicines to treat diseases that are caused by stress, a Western diet, lifestyle and lack of movement is not the way we wanted to practice our life's work. We want to help patients, educate them, empower them to take control of their health.
Through this reflection and questioning came Shiny Healthy People, a health care enter that treats mind, body and soul with food and lifestyle choices instead of medicine. We have a strong background and experience in biochemistry, microbiology, organic chemistry of medicine and we're using this to build our program in an integrative fashion. We also understand that the Primary Care office is too fast paced of setting to initiate this conversation due to time constraints.We want to fill the gap, and spend time educating people about their illness or ultimate lifestyle goals. Through experience, we also know how hard is to make changes to health and lifestyle, so each adjustment will be individualized to suit each persons’ current lifestyle and needs.
As our program and practice evolves, we'll be writing narratives of patient experiences, suggestions and recipes, resources and research, so that you can follow along on our journey. We're here to shift the paradigm and put the power of changing your life and your health back into your hands.
Prescriptions to change your food, prescriptions to change your life.
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