By Cat Aulakh, Genomic Health Practitioner
For the past 4 months, I have spent countless hours retooling the services and way I serve patients, work in collaborative research, and live my own life. Why? I started to fall into some habits and ideals that were not in-sync with my conscious self.
90 percent of female patients including professional athletes that seek our services ask for a detox and/or diet. As much as I do not like these terms and explain why, I agreed to adopt them for promotion purpose in private practise. I am writing this today to say that this practise stops immediately...
Both of these terms are toxic, incorrectly used, and in many cases in the health and wellness industry thin veils for selling something, nominally supplements or magic elixirs. It is a business model not a health model.
Clinics are businesses. Practitioners, too, are businesses and businesspersons. However, a sustainable model for a Practitioner and clinic in today's economy comes far more from referral and word of mouth than pumping up sales on products and schemes - and then losing that patient permanently as their benefits and finances become exhausted.
Over my years of continued training, a lot of my teachers and mentors continue to evolve their practises and flourish. These are the ones I admire best. They are not afraid to take new scientific studies and say "I am no longer accurate on this, but now this is what I believe and will work on" or "At the time, I believed...but..." Others, though, have opted to stay the course and produce doctrine that compliments a profitable selling platform - be it through the written word, podcast, speaking tour, etc.
Are all these that bad you ask? No - but 80 percent should be questioned.
If I pay money to go to an event and listen to a speaker, especially if it is for continued education purposes - I want to learn and be educated. I do not want to be sold a cure-all for the gut biome, for example.
As a Practitioner, you may be shaking your head - saying how hard it is to make a living. But please remember... We all came to this calling to help fill a void in the medical system. Our first job is to listen to the patient. Establish a plan to help get their life and health back on track, and become a valuable part of their healthcare team. Most of the folks that I see come because they have had a lot of tests, are or have taken a lot of medication and simply do not know why, and are sick and tired of being sick and tired. And, most importantly their primary care physician has had no time to truly listen.
Our RX is not to simply prescribed magic in a bottle. Run tests where the outcome is also in a bottle or package. It is much more complex. It should be designed individually with each new patient we are privileged enough to get.
We are an obsessed society where food is the TV addiction of the past. We must belong to a tribe, suffer to fit in and prescribe to a life-style. This all makes others a boat load of cash. As Practitioners, we feel swept up and pushed to join and adapt these winds of change with each new "profitable" storm that approaches... However, if you are true to yourself and patients - and look behind you at history - these are just patterns that repeat - and come to the surface and take data, research and the like to support - make money and then burn out and fizzle.
A detox is really a reset when it comes to functional medicine and a way to get your body to rid itself of overloads, things out of alignment, and regenerate itself to be stronger and function better. Same for your mind. You simply shift your focus to other areas to nourish it and it regenerates itself. Diet is really eating better for you. It should not be about suffrage, the forbidden, and fighting sheer will. That is a recipe for failure. How about we reinvent how you eat, why you eat, and how this fits in overall with your social conscious, your overall goals, your ability to sleep and smile when you look in the mirror and/or your ability to stay awake past 8:00pm?
At a convention yesterday, I was asked by a medical professional: "Would you say you slant more Paleo?" I laughed inside. She was obviously looking to find a like mind and herself was "Paleo."
How I eat is for me. How I help you eat is what is best for you.
Not everyone needs a genetic test. Not everyone needs to change how they are eating, but maybe realign another area of their life that is impacting their health and happiness, not allowing them to sleep, be a good partner, and have a child. We all have inner priorities that are affecting our decisions and our ability to be healthy - healthy on our levels.
So, I will stick to this course. I may prescribe a supplement to help you for a few weeks. But you are not locked into any plan and renewal system for it. In fact, most times I give patients a 1 or 2 week amount.
I will not detox or put you on a diet. I will realign your system, your relationship to food, how you eat and all the little intricacies that may be affecting your health outcomes.
As I work in the field of genetics and diagnostics, I will continue to help those who need testing, develop better testing options, and educate my patients along the way. I will be there to speak to your other physicians and champion your goals to them.
You will feel better because we are working as a team. And, I am listening... to quote Fraser Crane.
