The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine

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Preparing Successful Future Physicians to Meet
Emerging Social Needs in Humanitarian Ways

There is no doubt in my mind that the successful physician of the future will be a humanitarian, with a bent towards holism and a dedication towards ‘best practices’ from a broad array of possibilities. To be prepared for this daunting task, I believe that a very different emphasis will be required from pre-professional and professional education. This change needs to happen now.

We are in the midst of a paradigm shift in healthcare and wellness, not just in the United States, but throughout the world. The model has changed to a patient-centric one, focused upon prevention, therapeutic alliances, and holism. For most people, powerful drugs and surgery are last resorts. Nutrition, stress management, and fitness are the hallmarks of the emerging model and patients are taking the lead in their own health. In parts of Fairfield County, Connecticut, there are areas where chiropractors are on every block and acupuncturists and naturopathic physicians are vying for office space in professional buildings. More women are going to women physicians exclusively and both men and women are much more educated when it comes to healthcare.

All of these considerations might be lumped into a broad category, one I have been very involved in, called ‘holistic medicine.’ Holistic medicine is a broad term, which implies the best practices, including, but not limited to, conventional and alternative medicine.

The hallmark of conventional medicine is the use of allopathic drugs and surgery, while the term alternative medicine implies the use of other practices to replace drugs and surgery. ‘Complementary medicine,’ on the other hand, implies a partnership between conventional medicine and alternative practices. The focus is on prevention, therapeutic alliances, patient centered approaches, and minimally invasive procedures. These might include minimally invasive surgery and non-pharmacologic approaches to pain management.

Alternative practices might encompass a variety of modalities, including, but not limited to Traditional Medicine (Chinese Medicine, Tibetan Medicine, Ayurveda, African Healing Systems, and Native American Healing), ‘Energy’ Healing (Reiki, Therapeutic Touch, Healing Touch), Bodywork, Nutrition and / or Chiropractic approaches. Another name for Complementary Medicine is ‘Integrative Medicine.’ This name was chosen to imply not only wholeness, but to fix a problem that the name complementary caused. Patients thought ‘complementary’ implied that it was free!

Holistic medicine is the broadest relevant category and implies not only Alternative, Complementary and Integrative medicine, but much more. Holistic physicians (Including Allopathic, Homeopathic, Naturopathic, Osteopathic, and Podiatric) are only part of the story. Holistic nursing and dentistry are coming to the forefront. More esoteric practices, like body-mind psychotherapy, spirituality and health, organizational wellness, holistic architecture and landscaping and even CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) in neuroscience and humanities in medicine are making sweeping changes in the way we think about healthcare and wellness.

There is no question in my mind that Holistic Healthcare is not only the wave of the future, but also the course of the present.

As one of my favorite activities, I am president of the Connecticut Holistic Health Association. This volunteer-run non-profit organization, affectionately called CHHA, has been in existence since the early 1990’s (formerly the Greater Hartford Holistic Health Association). CHHA has played a lead role in professional, academic, and public education regarding holistic healthcare both within Connecticut and beyond its borders. CHHA has 4 active branches (more on the way), and about 400 members, including more than 20 affiliate organizations and many large member groups that comprise one of the 400 members listed. CHHA members practice more than 75 holistic modalities!

The primary goal of CHHA is to support holistically oriented practices while promoting partnerships with conventional medicine, academia, industry and government. CHHA sponsors conferences, symposia, professional health fairs and monthly networking educational meetings throughout the state. CHHA members provide more than 600 annual workshops and seminars annually. The CHHA website is www.cthha.org for those with similar interests.

My interest in Holistic Medicine goes back to my teen years in the 70’s when I had a stubborn bout with pneumonia. I tried conventional medicine, including antibiotics and sulfa drugs, for nearly a year with no success. Both physicians I worked with were at a loss as to how to treat me and the drugs were making me feel awful. Finally, being the rebellious teen that I was, I decided to take matters into my own hands. In just three weeks of using self-applied nutritional approaches, my pneumonia was completely gone and it has never returned. My treatment included minimizing dairy products, eating more fresh fruits and vegetables and taking some vitamin supplements. No one bothered to ask me about my diet. If they had they might have realized that, like many teenage boys of the time, I was into a high-protein diet full of dairy and lacking in fresh veggies (against my parents wishes) and vitamins!

This event may have changed the course of my life, since when I had a chance for a free medical education several years later, I refused to take advantage of this opportunity. Many years later, after I realized some of the great strides that aspects of conventional medicine had made, that decision began to haunt me. Even with four graduate degrees, jammed packed with biomedical and clinical coursework (including neuroscience), and 100’s of postgraduate seminars, I often felt that I was meant to have an MD, too! Even without that important credential, I have always kept up on the best practices from a variety of areas.

There are hundreds of Internet sites relating to health and interested consumers visit wellness and these sites millions of times per month. In fact, many of my physician friends have commented that due to their busy schedules that they often can not keep up with their patients in terms of current information.

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