Aug 16, 20223 min read

What is Integrative Medicine?

You've heard us talk about Integrative Medicine, but what does it really mean?

Integrative Medicine is an approach that looks at the whole person. It looks at a patient's stressors, nutrition, and sleep. A whole array of emotional, mental, social, spiritual, and environmental influences affect a person's health. I think back to the day of the family doctor who delivered all the babies and cared for those families throughout their lives - this was the norm. The family doctor knew about and was included in everyone's lives. Modern medicine has become more technologically advanced and complicated. It is harder for physicians to do this. Everything is much more time intensive... which can translate to less time spent with the patient.

Integrative Medicine is not the same thing as alternative medicine, which refers to an approach to healing that is utilized in place of conventional therapies. Neither is it complementary medicine which refers to healing modalities that are used to complement allopathic, conventional medicine. It rather takes everything a physician could have in their "toolbox," so to speak, and looks at what is best for the patient's unique set of circumstances.

The defining principles of Integrative Medicine are as follows:

The patient and the practitioner are partners in the healing process.
Work collaboratively with the patient and other interdisciplinary providers to improve the delivery of care.
All factors that influence health, wellness, and disease are considered, including body, mind, spirit, and community.
Good medicine is based on good science. Therefore, uses an evidence-based approach from multiple sources of information to integrate the best therapy for the patient, be it conventional or complementary. It is inquiry-driven and open to new paradigms.
Effective interventions that are natural and less invasive are used whenever possible. Prevention over prescription!
The care is personalized to best address the individual's unique conditions, needs, and circumstances.
Preventive-focused and a lifelong journey.

It uses the most appropriate interventions from an array of scientific disciplines to help people regain and maintain optimum health wherever they are in their life. It combines the disciplines of Traditional Medicine, Whole System Medicine, Functional Medicine, Naturopathic Medicine, and Lifestyle Medicine to develop the best plan to optimize health.

Integrative Medicine offers a broader approach to patient care and looks at each person uniquely. Integrative Medicine physicians are trained in nutrition, exercise physiology, mind-body modalities, and botanicals. We are already trained in traditional, allopathic medicine which is what we learned in medical school. Integrative Medicine expands that knowledge to learn Functional Medicine (that gets at the why of disease) and Whole System Medicine that has been around for centuries (eg. traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurvedic Medicine from India). It was fascinating to learn all this and so interesting!

Allopathic medical schools are now beginning to look into and teach this to students. When I was in school, I was never exposed to any of this. It is so intuitive, how can you help someone be as healthy as they can be if you don't look at their life as a whole - what they eat, how they move, how they sleep, who they are influenced by, what brings them joy and what they want out of life?

Traditional western medicine is great at acute diseases but not so good with chronic diseases. Look at most western nations - diabetes, hypertension, and obesity are killing us. I hope this explains more of what Integrative Medicine is and what it does. I think medicine is changing so that all physicians, no matter what their specialty are going to have to incorporate more of this into their practices. I think that is wonderful too! Patients want a partner, and they need to feel like they have a responsibility for their health and wellness.

I say all this to explain first and foremost what Integrative Medicine is but also so that you know where I am coming from each time I post. I hope that reading about the "interconnectedness" of our bodies with our minds, spirits, environment, and community has encouraged you to look into all facets of your life to see where change can be made to help you attain your lifestyle and wellness goals. We are here for you!