You have donated a Saturday to learn about an area of your professional skill set that some marketing groups, along with some official Pharmacist bodies, have deemed “unscientific, no evidence and snake-oil territory”.
Complementary medicines…….your patients are asking questions about these issues and you don’t have the answers.
So, what has changed?
- Do you know the answers now?
- Do you know where to go for the answers?
- Will you be proactive in this area, or defensive or downright dismissive?
No longer can we say that we don’t have the answers – I’ve never accepted that, and your patients don’t either.
The most relevant session of the 2016 Blackmores Institute Symposium was the “how to” presented by Treasure McGuire. These scenarios arise every day, not just occasionally. Treasure took us through options so simple and sensible that we usually overlook them, because we are so focused on the diseases and the drugs.
And by the way, I teach 3rd Year Bachelor of Health Science students this aspect of patient care as well, because our Pharmacy courses are so busy teaching us to be clinicians that we forget about what our patients want. Degree-qualified naturopaths are stepping into the breach which we have left vacant for 30 years.
Treasure presented a challenge that is common. One month after another, the patient is loaded up with medications with zero regard to outside influences like nutrition, family influences, quality of life and most especially their wishes to become empowered about their own health.
And many of these medications are being prescribed to offset the adverse effects of others…….
The information offered by Nigel Plummer on probiotics is essential if we wish to understand what role the gut plays in the risk for developing many chronic diseases, not just in the gut, but from a mental health and auto-immune perspective.
Omega-3 information is everywhere, but until the Omega-3 Index test is widely available, many of our patients are flying blind in their efforts to reduce cardiovascular disease risk.
It was refreshing to hear Peter Howe admit that he takes omega-3 supplements. Peter “walks the talk”…….do you?
Or are you happy enough to take the money and sell for the sake of selling?
Even though I’m a member of the American Botanical Council, there regulatory authorities are so different that I was puzzled by the relevance of the information given. This is Australia, where regulatory authorities have some clout, and we can be confident in that clout in spite of the bleatings from medical academia
Overall, the opportunity to hear information is overdue.
But what action will you take? Can your patients accept a suggestion about a nutritional intervention you might make? Will you concentrate on illness or wellness? Disease state or health state?
We have to move away from the silo mentality we’ve been lulled into accepting. Any aspect of our patient’s health has ramifications with every other aspect.
The choice is yours, because the naturopaths are coming…..