When I think about it, it seems like I have always been a Naturopathic Doctor. While that isn’t true, I’m closing in on 20 years and I still love my job.
Some of you may know my story but a lot of you won’t. When I was 10 my mom had to go off work with a mystery illness. No one knew what was wrong but she was very sick. After multiple rounds of testing she was told there was nothing wrong. But there was. In the end she was diagnosed with Environmental Illness (now known as Multiple Chemical Sensitivities) and it was a Naturopathic Doctor that helped her get better and return to work. The hospital she worked in was eventually torn down.
I had always wanted to be in health care and I loved the idea of doing something that allowed me to get to the root of something. As humans, we are complex and there are usually multiple reasons for symptoms and diseases. To others this may seem discouraging but to me it meant I had to double down and figure out a strategy to work through the layers. I also got to teach people how to advocate for themselves and figure out what questions to ask when navigating the medical system.
The speed of health care has changed so much in the last 20 years and especially in the last few years. We’ve joked for years about “Dr. Google” and now we have AI. I feel the same way about AI as I do about “Dr. Google” – it’s a great starting point. No one person can know everything and no practitioner knows you better than you know yourself. But the information on the internet, even though it is a great starting point, is not a strategy. If you try to fix your intestines but don’t look at your stomach first or if you try to support regulate your cortisol levels but also have low B12 then you are only going to get so far.
AI is often correct, but like generalized health care, it focuses on the “average” person. This is great because we need guidelines to follow, but it doesn’t identify the individual needs we all have. In a quick search, it says that the optimal level for B12 is 300 but it’s actually over 600! Japan has always required a higher level – they use 500 (and are talking about using 1000) but AI returns what it thinks is optimal in the US- it cited a reference from Yale.
We also all have stories of how AI has been wrong. When looking up the tide tables this year AI had them backwards. We’ve all heard about the AI recipes that are flops! Naturopathic Doctors have long been used for second opinions and you should continue to use our services this way.
AI is here to stay and we should use it to help guide us and give us a place to start. Naturopathic medicine and Naturopathic Doctors will help you sort through the noise that you can find online, can give you a second opinion and will offer you a health care strategy that is individual for you.
Even though so much has changed in 20 years I’m able to go back to the reason I started doing this in the first place – getting to the root of your health concerns with strategy and teaching you how to advocate for yourself!
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