Rebecca spent a week at my practice because of her interest in holistic psychiatry. She was able to meet and learn from many of my patients. She is now at one of our nation’s most prestigious psychiatry residency programs. She sent the following note to me:
Dear Dr. Lee-Bloem,
Hello! I think about you every day. I think about you when I see these disturbingly disabled patients who suffer from chronic illnesses for YEARS (I’m working at the VA) without any hope for a functional life. I think of you when I’m sitting in class, and listening to all the side effects of these medicines, and their questionable efficacy. I think to myself, “how can we be legally doing this to patients?” There must be a better way. I think about you when I see patients who come to the VA to “get away” from life…they just want a place of refuge for a few days….a few days of peace. I think of you as I try to taper my patients off of medications (the opposite of what I’m supposed to do on the unit, right?).
I wish with all my heart that what I experienced in your office could be the gold standard…where patients felt loved. I wish that we would realize that depression doesn’t come out of the blue. It is triggered by something… medicines won’t change someone’s social situations.
I have so many more thoughts to share…but I just wanted to write and let you know that I think of you often.
Striving to rejoice,
Rebecca
From a medical student in one of our nation’s top medical schools:
“They gave us one 2-hour class on nutrition, and mostly they talked about weight loss drugs. That’s it in 4 years, no joke. It is amazing, but it follows from their premises. They study the molecular basis of disease, and then try to fight disease molecule by molecule. And of course, artificial molecules are patentable, natural ones aren’t – meaning drugs are profitable and nutrients aren’t, and the rest follows. We had one mock patient who was an obese child with diabetes, and the only thing we talked about was drugs. Bloody hell.”
For both Rebecca and the medical student, training in the medical field is sadly inadequate. Do training programs realize what is going through students’ minds? Do they realize that they would earn more respect from these students if they were to incorporate cutting-edge orthomolecular principles and energy healing into the curriculum? Although medical training in integrative medicine is still in its infancy, the brilliant minds who yearn for it now will be the teachers of those who, in the years to come, will benefit from their journey.