Putting the "Health" Back in Healthcare
One of my biggest role models in the field of medicine has been Dr. Andrew Weil. His philosophies on health and healing were what made me want to go to medical school in the first place. I started medical school with the idea of practicing Integrative Medicine, however, somewhere along the way I was funneled down the path of our conventional medical model which primarily focuses on disease management. Fast forward a couple of years and it is Dr. Weil that has ignited my passion for patient centered medicine yet again. I had the great fortune and privilege to be accepted to Dr Weil's Integrative Medicine Fellowship through the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine.
This program has given me the education, confidence and passion I needed to make my transition into my own Integrative and Functional medicine practice.Dr. Weil recently sat down for an interview with Forbes to explain the healthcare problems we face today and what he thinks can be done to turn things around. In the interview he discusses how “We are all suffering from a broken health care system and medicine that is too dependent on expensive technology and pharmaceutical drugs that often cause as much harm as benefit.”As a solution to this broken healthcare system, Dr. Weil is funding education of alternatives. “I am training physicians and allied health professionals in Integrative Medicine, which emphasizes prevention, self-care, reliance on the body’s innate healing capacity, and low-tech, low-cost interventions along with judicious use of conventional medicine,” he says.
Dr. Weil seeks to create a new model for healthcare with an emphasis on health. “It will result in a transformation of medical education and a new generation of health professionals knowledgeable about nutrition, lifestyle influences on health, mind/body interactions, natural remedies and other systems of medicine such as Ayurveda and Chinese medicine. "These doctors of the future will create a functional system of healthcare for our population,” Dr. Weil concludes.
Please check out the video below for the full interview https://youtu.be/LPwZ_z6XEVY