Holism in Healthcare

Season’s greetings, from out West!

Winter is in full effect here - I’m currently blogging from our couch while watching giant fluffy snowflakes silently fall outside the window, quietly stacking to insulate our wilderness. And stacking up, they sure are! Winter in Montana is ethereal, it’s truly breathtaking.

Today I have the healthcare system on my heart, and what the true meaning of healthcare really is. Maybe it’s my - soon to be past - employer’s speed in complying with a government mandate as a means to save financial contracts. Maybe it’s my daughter’s dental work I’m picking up extra shifts to afford, even after insurance pays. Maybe it’s our friends and family going to the doctor for their annual wellness checks. Maybe it’s our realization that we each haven’t been to a regular doctor in 10+ years.

But maybe it’s also just the roots of the word - health and care. To care for one’s health. To show care and attention to health. Are we doing this anymore? Health… intentional healing. Has it ever been this?

I feel like the recent shift in healthcare has really been to sick-care. I feel this underlying pull of morality as a nurse, and my passion to be a nurse, that just isn’t aligning anymore with what I’m being advised to say, do, repeat, quote, refer, promote, or respond. These days, rumors are going around, that medical professionals could even have their licenses revoked or suspended if we don’t directly quote the CDC or NIH etc. as a response to patients’ honest questions about their options around the coronavirus. Medicine shouldn’t be indoctrinated like this. We shouldn’t be mindless robots repeating what the website tells us. Medicine is not one-size-fits-all, and science evolves by nature, that’s what science is… a constant evolution of knowledge and explanation, it changes, and so should we as we learn more. We are each such individual beings with individual needs and conditions. Seeing a provider is only one piece of that. An assessment and intervention plan is only one piece of that. What about the full picture?

That’s not what we signed up for. It feels bought out.

Now I will mention that I am a firm believer in evidence-based, western medicine interventions when the situation warrants it. I’ve seen dialysis, oncology treatments, organ transplant and life-saving surgeries performed with incredible success stories. We need this balance. This blog is in no way to bash these practices, they are needed when we are seriously ill or injured. This post is simply about wellness promotion, to avoid illness as much as possible. There can and should be a balance of the two if we’re truly invested in health.

We signed up for holism, whether or not we see it. I think most medical professionals do aim for this whole-patient approach. Holism is the big, warm embrace of all the facets of lifestyle that contribute to our overall wellness. It goes so far beyond “health care” subjects. Holism also encompasses:

Home life and social situation

Financial stability

Nutritional intake and vitamins/minerals, hydration

Hormonal health and balance

Sexual health and wellness, autonomy

Self-confidence and self-image

Relationship dynamics and generativity

Energy healing and trauma resolution in the soul, alignment

Time balance, mental load, stress management

Exercise, stretching, striving for gain, laughing

Adequate sleep and rest periods, circadian rhythms, breathwork

Chemical balance, detoxification, antioxidation

Grounding, inner child, spirituality and peace

Holism takes into account the whole soul. The whole patient. The whole picture of their health needs. It’s true health care. Not just health… does-what-we’re-told. Not just what they present to the office for or what we code their diagnoses as. As a western medicine practitioner, I’m trained to listen therapeutically to a patient’s subjective complaint and almost without realizing it I start automatically assigning diagnosis codes to each thing. And I already know which codes pay more so in which order I’d list them on their bill for the day. I start thinking about their insurance and follow up appointments. Tests we can run and if physical follow up appointment would pay more than telemedicine.

It’s time to break this cycle.

I can relate holism in healthcare to the changing seasons of our surroundings. The snowflakes I see falling are just one part of the whole winter. There’s also loss of leaves, lingering scent of fireplace smoke, warm glowing ambiance from Christmas lights on porches and the unspoken bustling cheerful energy of the holiday season. It all adds up to the whole aesthetic. There’s so much more to patient advocacy and wellness than just what we learned in school.

It’s balance. It’s symbiotic. In winter, we balance out the cold with layers of cozy sweaters and socks. It’s cold, so we reach for the items in our toolkit to stay comfortable. We couldn’t survive the cold without the added protection of warmth. In healthcare, it’s also a balance. What we know is, like the snowflakes in winter, there are multiple facets to overall wellness. We have the tools in our toolkit as well, but I challenge us to look at what the tools are we’re using. Who wrote the textbooks we learned with? Who profits from the medications we prescribe? It’s time to think whole-picture in healthcare and sometimes that takes a non-conventional approach and a very open mind.

We need to start working with patient’s bodies instead of against them. We need to start encouraging our patients to invest in their own health, take responsibility for themselves and trust their intuitions.

For example: what if we guided our patients to eat minimally-processed whole food nutrition and grass fed high quality proteins, balanced with fresh seasonal vegetables and fruits with all the highest mineral rich content. What if we helped them create a wellness plan, one they create, using goals that are actually attainable for their lifestyle, to heal themselves from the inside out?

Another example: Think of an apple with a bruise. We can cut out the bruise, sure, and it’s still a delicious apple otherwise. But with holism, we should assess the other apples on the tree, the condition of the tree that houses the apples, the soil that feeds the tree, the weather conditions that the tree endures the stress, etc. In this example it’s not about fixing the bruise, it’s about promoting wellness for the tree to avoid bruises altogether.

Or the classic example: A patient presents with concerns over her acne. Do we treat the acne? Or do we take deeper look to see which imbalances in her wellness or her lifestyle are causing this hormonal stress on her skin? How about both? Homeopathy and inflammation management would help her more than Accutane.

This needs to change. It needs to go from - let me tell you what’s wrong and how to fix it, do it or else…. to - let’s work together and assure this plan for you is actually sustainable for you long term. Let’s try these certain things to create harmony in your metabolism, mental health, birth plan etc. to make it so you don’t have to see a provider as often or only when you want to. Because it’s up to you. If we take care of our bodies, they will take care of us.

This intentional attentiveness to our body’s whole wellness picture doesn’t have to be just in the medical setting either, I encourage all of us to live this way! This blog is for all of us and I hope it provides some food for thought. I’ve been chewing on this for a few weeks now and am grateful for conversation about it, any time!

Holism can exist in healthcare. It’s the definition of true healthcare.

And as a holistic provider, I promise to encourage you to live… and live well.

Here was me during an overnight shift with a covid positive patient, just missing my cap. The next morning I showered and meditated, journaled, grounded and drank loose leaf tea to find balance. My pursuit of medical freedom of choice aligns with the theory of holistic healthcare and this was a perfect example.

Balance is beautiful.