It’s 2004 & I’m practicing from South Melbourne when one of my patients comes in with a few pages of test results she wonders if I want to take a look at. I’d love to of course but the ‘language of labs’ was not taught in naturopathy back then, so it all just looks like scribble to me. But I need all the help I can get. She’s got a complex medical history, including a serious condition I don’t think I’d ever encountered even in our pathology lectures. That’s not necessarily a deal-breaker for naturopaths of course. And as I had been taught to do, I put that aside in an effort to see her health as a ‘whole’. Identify & then follow all the individual threads, so that I can see how her key vulnerabilities or imbalances intersect & therefore know how and what to actually treat, rather than any diagnoses & labels she’s been given. But I look at these pieces of paper full of impenetrable information in my hand & instinctively think, ‘Ineed to follow this thread too & see where it takes me.’

The universe was clearly in a conspiratorial frame of mind in that moment, because I went to the books (see above reference to the year) to learn about some of her out of range results – one was Cu, I remember that clearly!- and it provided me with immediate insight that I hadn’t arrived at by any other method.

And so I began building.

Within 12 months with my preschool twins & partner in tow, I had relocated to Northern NSW to undertake research on this at SCU. Yep this sense of something building was quite the force! I wanted to add to my emerging understanding of the role of pathology interpretation but also create a conversation with my whole profession about how this could be of enormous additional value to all of us. And my bilingualism was building & I had come to believe this was the only option for us as a profession: to understand mainstream markers enough to be completely competent medically with our interpretation of them and by adding our deeper and more detailed knowledge of biochemistry & nutrition, radically optimise those insights & understanding about each individual we could glean from these.

The universe conspired again, this time in the human-form of Dr. Tini Gruner, who became my SCU thesis supervisor.

A woman equally passionate about this being part of naturopathic practice and already doing it. A biochemist by trade (then a naturopath) she was renowned for her sleuthing skills & her superpower was including pathology results in the work up of her own patients. She taught her undergrads not just how to incorporate but also integrate these into their practices. While she constantly sought out further CPD in this space for herself. Pushing us all forward on this front as a result – until she wasn’t. However, Tini had already well & truly passed me a baton before she tragically passed away & was emphatic that I should Keep. On. Building.

So I did.

In addition, seeing its enormous potential to improve the way we practice, my thesis had given me a glimpse into how problematic pathology testing could be. We make assumptions that if a test is available commercially (& esp mainstream) it must have good evidence behind it. Uh…no. And then the very idea that reference ranges represent what’s healthy. Also a no. I was now insatiable in my appetite for anything that could help me better understand & extract the full value from the biggest dataset we have on every patient – routine screen results. I undertook any vaguely related CPD including courses with the association of pathologists, that were so dry they bordered on crumbly! And I applied every new bit of information. In my own private practice, through my role as a clinic supervisor and lecturer, via all the cases I was exposed to across over a decade of mentoring huge numbers of practitioners. I kept reading research & applying it in real time. Not only in the initial work up but all the way through individuals’ treatment – to see what was still standing at the end, as solid, sensible, reliable, reproducible, interpretation of these mainstream markers. At every stage I learned & adjusted my lens. And my instructions about how to improve their accuracy also because I’d seen first-hand results go rogue in response to every type of collection condition confounder us crazy humans can conjure up!

Over time isolated ideas I’d had about individual results & what they reflected became intricate patterns, such that I was able to formalise frameworks, shaped in practice.

When the plague came in 2020 I turned to my team and said, this is our opportunity. It was the culmination of something that started that day in South Melbourne. We built the MasterCourse in Comprehensive Diagnostics & ‘comprehensive’ was not an adjective used lightly. From reading enormous amounts of primary research we were able to actually redefine the ‘reference ranges’ for all routine screens . Transforming these from what we see on our patients’ reports, which are simply statistical ‘norms’ of the population (or even worse, an inconceivably small sample of users from one pathology provider!) – into ranges that actually reflect ‘healthy’, even in some instances ‘optimal’. And not satisfied with simply applying this to every adult, we went further, stratifying by sex, by age, by reproductive stage wherever possible. Then we added another layer, emerging mathematical ratios reflecting meaningful relationships between markers. It was of course no longer 2004 and we were no longer beholden to borrowing books and making photocopies, but it was an enormous undertaking and one I will always be proud of.

But it was never about creating just a new set of numbers and a narrower threshold for triggering ‘Hs & Ls’ but about fostering a paradigm shift in pathology interpretation & equipping clinicians with an entirely new skillset.

It’s 2026 and pathology interpretation has never been more important & relied upon in our practices. I’m thrilled and Tini would be too. Accordingly, references range cheat sheets, software apps etc are popping up everywhere. I love a shortcut as much as the next person if it takes me to the same destination, but these are not designed to do that. The ranges and models I teach, as hopefully you might now have an inkling of, are part of a comprehensive system developed over many years and are not reproducible without that training and context. Oh and if you’re assuming the praccies behind these products (who often reference me but off the record) have undertaken my MasterCourse…uh, again. no. But one individual did reach out. Refreshingly retro and professional & perhaps even, sensible. Has the universe once again acted conspiratorially to write this next part of the story? We’ll see🤔

Sorry for such a long rave but we have a lot of new people here & the practice landscape including all the options for pathology interpretation are seemingly changing on a daily basis and I just thought sharing the story of how it all started might be timely.

Photo by Somia DCosta on Unsplash