It is unfortunate that simply saying the above headline to a person of color is now considered RACIST. Unfortunate because in the pursuit of health, it is helpful to understand a person's genetic makeup. You learn a person's genetic makeup by exploring their deep history. "Where did your people come from?" is a question I have used for years to begin to understand this. I get very interesting answers and stories.

It would be so much easier if everyone would do genetic testing like to assess their origins. If someone were to ask me "Where are you REALLY from" I would answer "I am a Euro-mutt."  If they pressed me further, I'd say I'm from "Northern and Western Europe, plus a trace of Polynesian islander". In spite of family lore and my blood type, I know that I am not descended from the native tribes of North America--unless 23 and Me (the gene testing I used) has mistaken Native American genes for Polynesian. I have no way to assess that.

Discussing people's origins and genetics is important in medicine. To really understand a person's evolutionary predispositions and needs, we need to know where (or better, WHO) they are "from".

I understand that people of color have long been harassed by repeated questions along these lines. I know that recently a British royal employee apologized and resigned after questioning an Australian official this way. The social ramifications are playing out as they must in this time of high sensitivity. As medical professional, I maintain that we need to be allowed to talk about our evolution and genetics, because if we cannot, we are deprived of a huge and growing resource.

Genetics and epigenetics will be part of the Future of Medicine. There is no avoiding it. Learning about a person's evolutionary origins is not racist in this setting, it is humanist. It is an attempt to understand, and to help.

Please be kind to each other. Regardless of variations in genetics and in appearance, we are all human. It is my opinion that all humans deserve a certain base level of respect and dignity. Give it. Without question. Work to recognize and deprogram your biases. Accept that not all words that hit your buttons are "racist" or sexist. Your buttons are YOUR biases, your programming, and only you have the ability to do something about them.

Image below: Skin with low melanin, and its layers.

There are students working in the medicinary again. Due to covid we had no workstudy students for a couple of years. It's good to have them back, to be teaching again. And it's a heads up about all the things they just haven't been taught, don't know, don't have any way of knowing. I have a few pieces of advice that I have given to lots of ND students in the past, and I decided it's time to write them down because their shifts are shorter than ever, and we are so understaffed that we rarely have much time to talk.

There's one piece of advice that I wish someone had given me before I even started Naturopathic Medical school. This tidbit could be useful for anyone studying medicine, or really, for anyone studying something complex that they hope to be really good at. This is it: find a way to organize your knowledge, and do it persistently for your whole life.

In medicine, like in any large field of knowledge, there is more to know than any one person can. There is more than you could possibly remember. This is why there are specialists, and reference books. But an ND degree is preparation to be a primary care doctor, and in primary care, anything or anyone could walk through that door. You have to be ready. You want to do right by your patients.

To develop deep knowledge you need to approach your subject from lots of different perspectives. To practice naturopathic medicine, you need to understand the conventional approach and something about all the alternatives. You must do the work of sorting through what works, what doesn't work, and what we don't know yet. Sometimes the conventional approach is the best, and sometimes it fails. You need to know that.

But back to that tidbit of advice I wish I'd had. Start your Black Book. The Black Book is a term for whatever system you use to organize your notes about conditions and treatments. I don't know where the term black book comes from, but I do know that Wiccans write out their spells in actual black books. Farmers keep notes on their plantings and when things bloom or fruit, which is how we know that the grape harvest in Napa Valley is a whole month earlier than it was a decade ago. These days my notes are in documents stored on dropbox, accessible anywhere I can get online.

​I suggest that every student of Naturopathic medicine begin while you are in school. Ideally you'd start before you are in school, or in your first year, but most students don't because they don't know what information is important, yet. They don't know how to organize it. If this describes your situation, the next post is the How To of the Black Book. You are expected to know not only how the body/mind/spirit works, but also the conventional standard of care, and enough about a myriad of alternatives to pick the best ones for patients who don't want to do what convention dictates.

If you start while you are in school, you can use your black book as a study tool. Make black book pages relevant to whatever therapeutic targets are mentioned. Don't worry if you don't have information for every heading, just put in what you have learned. When you are preparing for yet another test, get the useful bits into your Black Book. Use the clinical board exams as another occasion to build your understanding. Study up on any conditions that you or your dear ones have, because that could well end up being your specialty. Later you will study the same way for your patients, each time one comes in the door with a new concern. Continuing Education requirements are an attempt to force even complacent doctors to update their knowledge. The practice of medicine is best done by life long learners.

In this polarized time, people are falling into groups as if it were their only safety.  In politics if you aren't a Republican, you're a Democrat.  In medicine you're either pro-vaccine, or an anti-vaxxer.  In religion you're either devout, or an atheist.  I'm here to tell you that none of those are true.

I'm an Independent, politically.  I'm a vaccine moderate, meaning I think some vaccines are good and some not so good, and some people should get vaccines that other people should not.  I'm "spiritual but not religious" meaning that I don't go to any church but I have my own practice which brings me into contact with the sacred and sublime, and I believe that some such practice is essential for becoming a moral human.  In other words, I live in the grey.

If you are like me and don't fit into the pre-made groups, welcome.  Fellow seekers, people who do not accept anyone else's narrative and prefer to learn and discover and make our own story, we are this nation's hope for the future, this world's hope for the future.  Collective intelligence relies on both diversity and disagreement; we have to be able to talk about tough issues without shutting each other down.  Without disrespecting each other.

When you already know all the answers, in spite of not having done the study for yourself, you are taking a shortcut to a dead end.  People who are sure that one political party or the other is 100% on the right track are mistaken.  People who think that every single human should be given the Covid-19 vaccine are just as mistaken as those who think it's a government effort to inject micro-chips and track us all.  People who think that every single soul who does not agree with their religion is going to hell, they're already in a philosophical dead end.  It can be hard to turn around in a dead end.

It is important to understand the best arguments of your adversaries.  It is valuable to develop real arguments for your positions rather than simply saying that the other side is wrong, or so-and-so told you so.  Humans being social creatures are susceptible to accepting whatever version of reality is used by those around us--but we are also intelligent enough to question it.

It's time to develop our moderateness, our humility and kindness.  Nobody can know everything.  Admitting that we don't know is an opportunity to learn.  Admitting that we've been listening to an authority figure who doesn't actually know gives us an opportunity to investigate new sources, to check out different experts, and to develop a more nuanced and complete view of our world.  The truth pretty much always lies somewhere in the grey.

I just completed a training at NCNM and what I learned is that there ARE other people in the community who are impassioned about social justice. Sometimes, when I'm walking down the street, and the people around me are completely closed off from each other, I wonder. I feel good every time that I am the one to stop and ask if someone is OK, offer a hand with something, or otherwise step up to be part of the kinder gentler world that civilization is supposed to bring.

I feel our common humanity more deeply than I fear our external differences. I do not care what color you are, or what you think is sexy, or which religion you think is the right one.  What I care about is joy.

So presume only that I will take you as another human, doing the best you can. I hope you will see that I am no different.

I'm pleased to announce that my new office is nearly ready.  There are still a few pieces of furniture to bring in, and some new equipment on order.  This is the waiting room, and that thing on the wall (left side) is a water fountain that makes a delightfully relaxing sound.  My office is the one with the light coming in on the right.  More photos to come.

What I hear is that most everybody in America is frustrated about healthcare.  Maybe you have good insurance, but then the doctor doesn't listen, or the treatment doesn't work.  Maybe you're on pills and don't know what they're for.  Maybe you don't have insurance and flat out can't afford to get help.  Maybe you think something's wrong but don't want to confirm it because then you'd have to deal with it.  We all worry, and it's not easy to sort out what to do.  Doctor Google can be misleading, and sometimes terrifying.  The assortment of supplements at the store is overwhelming.  Everybody thinks they know what will help you, but they don't know your whole story.  They don't know the half of it.  It's not an easy situation.

I offer a win-win deal: I will take a thorough history and get to know you enough to have an idea how the parts of your life are affecting you.  Then I educate you about your options, including alternative and conventional therapies.  In the end, using real information you choose what you want to do.  Conventional medicine is the best answer for some situations and conditions.  Naturopathic medicine helps as long as you are willing to do more than pop pills and sit on the couch.  If I can't help you, I will help you find someone who can.  I consider it my job to provide you with current, personalized, unbiased information, not to keep you a slave to some treatment that only I can offer.

My personal slant is scientific.  I realize that many people consider Naturopathy to be quite "alternative".  Considering what has happened with pharmaceutical medicine, an alternative is much needed.  Naturopathic Medicine (as I use it) is a combination of traditional healing (forgotten in the age of pharmaceuticals) and the application of new knowledge about how our choices affect body function and healing.  Conventional medicine is not keeping up with the changing times. A simple change in your diet or lifestyle could do you more good than a drug that you take for the rest of your life (and save you a gazillion dollars).   Making informed, gradual improvements to your diet and lifestyle will save you money, increase your quality of life, and help you stay away from the doctor, the pharmacy, and the hospital.

If you are one of those skeptics who has avoided alternative medicine because you don't think naturopaths have any real training, come see me for a free 15 minute introduction. I would like to tell you how a science-minded skeptic like myself can embrace Naturopathy.  I can show you some of the great research that supports nonpharmaceutical and nonsurgical approaches to health.  There's plenty of it.

There are plenty of reasons to seek alternatives when facing the gauntlet of what insurance will buy for your health.  It's not cheating to get a second, or third opinion about any persistent health problem.  Before you take the toxin, or submit to the knife, it is wise to be sure that is what you need to do.

In this day and age, it is necessary to second guess every information source.  So much "information" goes by that it becomes difficult to sort out what is advertising and what is not.  Even reporting about scientific research can completely skew the issue.  It doesn't pay to be gullible.

The problem is that we are wired to be gullible.  We humans would much rather trust in some comfortable authority figure and believe what they say, than to do all that research and work ourselves.  Figuring out the truth takes time...and sometimes the truth is elusive.  We just don't know everything yet.  We'd rather just believe.

Modern first-world culture is divisive and argumentative.  People agree to disagree more often than agreeing in substance.  As in other parts of our public arena, in the healthcare debate the shouting overwhelms reasonable conversation. Conventional treatments espoused by governments and establishment medical business may not be supported by the research. The policy came about when someone had to make a decision by a deadline using the best information available. We all do it.  We have to go on what we know, even if it is incomplete or incorrect. More information comes along, but established policy stays the same.  This is the downside of bureaucracy. Proponents of established methods will say that this must work because it is the rule, and don't worry about finding out the truth.

Alternative treatments are espoused by a wide range of practitioners and patients.  Often alternative treatments have little or no science backing them up.  Proponents say this works because they have seen it work, and maybe it did.  Just because there is no science doesn't mean it isn't true. Proponents also commonly claim that the science backs them up when it does not.

The Skeptic doesn't believe anything just because an authority said so.  The Skeptic asks questions, and studies the important questions, so as to be able to know if someone is speaking from a position of knowledge and perspective, or blowing a lot of hot air.  The Skeptic realizes that real information or falsehoods can come from any side, and runs every morsel through an internal fact-checker.  The truth is a moving target, and the skeptic is ever on the hunt.

After taking boards in August, I went on a series of adventures.  As you may know by now, my favorite form of outdoor recreation is boating down whitewater rivers.  I got to run the Rogue River here in Oregon for the first time, and returned to Arizona for another trip down the mighty Colorado River through Grand Canyon.  Our Grand Canyon adventure was 21 days long; a very long time to be away from cars, money, electricity, and everything else modern.  I love that.  On both trips I was rowing a raft.  I enjoy rowing in part because it strengthens my core and makes me feel awesome.  I had let myself get soft while studying for boards, and I feel much stronger after these trips.

While we were away my board results came in.  My mail was on hold so it wouldn't pile up in the mailbox.  When we got home I fell to the project of unpacking and cleaning up.  My partner asked me "Are you going to open the mail?" and finally I did.  I expected to pass, but the way those exams are, you never know for sure until you get the results.  Thankfully, I passed with room to spare.  I'm done running around on major multi-day river trips for now, and well rested to tackle the paperwork involved in starting up my practice.  Here goes!!!