Ever wondered where on earth (or Mars?!) I came from? As much as I can’t keep quiet on some topics, my personal journey to here has been a bit of closed book to many. Recently during an interview with Andrew Whitfield-Cook from FxMedicine, which was supposed to be strictly about postgraduate education paths and the desperate need for mentoring, internships etc for naturopaths, the sneaky devil got me to spill the beans on a whole lot more!
Having been involved in so many aspects of naturopathic and integrative health care education over the past 15 years, of course I do have a lot of ideas about how practitioners can best accelerate their learning and development, the need for more independent education and the importance of fostering critical thinking.
I think you already know that I feel passionately about this but do you know the whole story? Who I have been mentored by and how I continue to tread the path of the ‘student’?(more…)
In an ASLM Tweet I shared this weekend, I mentioned our own ‘Gut Guru’, Jason Hawrelak reported dietary saturated fat (including coconut oil) increases GIT endotoxin uptake and boy did that stir the pot! The social media switchboard lit up! It’s ok I know there isn’t a switchboard anymore…but I am old school 😉 This got just about everybody talking on Twitter & Facebook…and thinking out there in the real world…which is good, right? And if you read to the end you will find prizes galore for those of you that want to add to this discussion 🙂(more…)
When I was studying my undergraduate I sat at the front of the class, especially for the medical sciences. My chemistry lecturer tried to talk me into transferring to chemistry. My biochemistry lecturer tried to convince me to become a biochemist. But what I loved was the union of the two: medical sciences and naturopathy. As a student I hogged all Q and A opportunities and I am confident I annoyed many many people.If this sounds familiar, not because you were a classmate and I still annoy you (!), but because you could also be labelled a ‘lab lover’, a ‘pathology perv’ and an EBM evangelist…then this might just be for you. You can find out by answering these Qs… (more…)
I am frequently asked what scientific journals I subscribe to and often by the same practitioners over and over, because they can’t reconcile my answer: “None”. Yet I constantly have my head in the scientific literature, right? The two are not mutually exclusive, it’s just about knowing which free scientific and medical news-feeds are worth their weight in gold! If you really are digging into the itty-bitty detail of things these won’t answer all your questions on all your topics but they do a great job of 1) keeping you up to date with the big headlines in general medicine, or, with the use of alert systems and filters, just the areas of health you’re particularly interested in and 2) offering you a huge highly credible resource database that is easily searchable.
Point 1, Exhibit A 😉 :
Here’s just a few examples from the last month that popped into my inbox from Medscape that got my pulse racing:
So you’ve heard part of that BIMA story…now here’s the rest. To be honest, I was pretty surprised to win anything given I’ve spent the last 20 years ‘agitating’, challenging the misinformation and strongholds of the big companies etc. Funnily enough, in my post award ceremony interview, my interviewer dished up the biggest compliment of the evening when he said, “Rachel, we all know you can’t be bought!”
Nutritional & naturopathic medicine is an exciting dynamic field that is growing its evidence base every day but we need to be vigilant about our sources of information, their credibility etc. I know that what motivates me the most to share what I know is the desperate need for independent voices, free from commercial bias that can help us move our medicine forward on solid ground. (more…)
Psssssssssssst….just thought I would share a special moment from a couple of weeks ago when I received the BIMA for Lecturer of the Year.
Thanks to all those practitioners who nominated me for Lecturer, Nutritionist & Researcher of the year! It was really special to be acknowledged in this way for my role in education. I am so grateful to have had the support of so many throughout my career – from my own exceptional teachers, Sue Evans, Assunta Hunter, Gill Stannard, Helen Margulies, Fay Paxton, and most influential of all, Dr. Tini Gruner, right through to all the fabulous practitioners that I have the privilege to mentor (and secretly learn from at the same time 😉 ) (more…)
Just back from a truly wonderful Australasian Integrative Medical Association (AIMA) conference in NZ. I don’t know what it is about the land of the long white cloud but they seem to produce some of the loveliest, most earnest health practitioners and this conference reflects this, setting itself apart each year as a result of its very organic mix of speakers (general practitioners, naturopaths, nurses, specialists) who are all equally embraced and lauded. To boot we had medical students invited to attend this year and guess what, these 20 or so med students…they stayed for the full weekend much to everyone’s surprise(!), loved it and want more. Really. At the AIMA NZ conference, on the two occasions I have spoken, I feel a sense of coming home…no I don’t mean I am about to move there (too cold!!) but I mean coming home to integrative medicine.(more…)
This year has kicked off with lots of time spent re-calibrating my own and other practitioners’ businesses models via business mentoring and it’s such a privilege. One symptom that seems to creep into almost every practitioner’s business model though, is one of over-delivery. (Curse that empathy and all those good hearts hey!) Over-delivering comes in many forms, it might sound or look like this…
“I always run over”
Rather than responding to this with further self-criticism and , pledging better allegiance to the clock – we could hear this as a reflection that our appointment structure is out-dated or unsuitable. We need to restructure to allow for the time we really do spend and need to spend with our clients and then adjust the appointment fees appropriately. Having said that be aware of the other golden oldie: (more…)
Make the most of this special offer! If you become a12 month subscriberbefore the end of January (that’s tomorrow!) you receive 10% off ALL individual mentoring sessions in 2017!
And just so you know what we have in store for you as an Update in Under 30 Subscriber this month: Rachel’s kicking off the year with ‘Melatonin – Misunderstandings and Mistakes’ – an amazing clinical update about what we are getting right and wrong with Melatonin. This podcast answers in particular, one of the most common sources of fascination & frustration for clinicians, the reasons behind the Melatonin non-responder. We’ve all encountered patients who have taken Melatonin for sleep problems and reported no benefit, or initially responded and then lost efficacy quickly, or even patients who experienced insomnia after taking. What does this tell you about your patient and what should you do to resolve this and better still, prevent it? Now we know.(more…)
Have you heard what everyone is saying about the “Update in Under 30 Podcasts”? But more importantly, have you heard about “Update in Under 30 Podcasts”… fullstop?! If you’ve somehow missed out on being a subscriber & receiving these monthly gems over the last few years, you MUST read on … These dynamic podcasts will help you keep abreast of the latest must-knows in integrative medicine. Focused on one key issue at a time, Rachel details all the salient points so that you don’t have to trawl through all the primary evidence yourself. In Under 30! Each podcast represents unbiased education that can contribute to your CPE points and is delivered to your inbox every month for under $13 a month… how easy is that!(more…)
The standout gift I got this year for Christmas without a doubt was my very own copy of Sarah Lantz & Tabitha McIntosh’s, One Bite at a Time – Reduce Toxic Exposure & Eat the World You Want. Every time I walk past it on the table a strange force compels me to run my fingers over the cover, reach for it to pour over some more pages whenever I have moments to myself and show it to everyone who crosses our doorstep. This strange force…I think is called pride. I experienced a tsunami of this at the Australian Naturopathic Summit and now here is another wave.(more…)
I became interested in working in mental health not entirely of my own free will. I guess you could say, it had made it’s way into my world via family members and friends as well as my own problems when I was younger. So when I was at uni and I came across any information about mental illness, whether it was pathology or prescription, it was when I undoubtedly resonated most strongly with what I was learning. I’ve had some great opportunities throughout my career to feed my interest, met some wonderful mentors and some other powerful teachers who were often my patients. It’s now become a running joke among my teenage children that all my friends are either psychologists or have some sort of mental health diagnosis, ‘…and what does that say about you?’ they love to add teasingly. Well it says a lot probably: that I enjoy people who are comfortable talking about the psychology of our lives and ourselves, that I deeply appreciate that to be human is to suffer and we all suffer it’s just a question of degrees and the bravest of us share that with others. Lastly, I think it tells you that I live in the real world with real people 🙂(more…)
Fresh faced students, new graduates and seasoned practitioners alike, are forever reminding me of the challenge we experience as practitioners when it comes to instigating real change in our patients health related behaviours … the change we KNOW will make a difference to their health and wellbeing. ‘If only they actually listened to us!?!’ has been screamed by the novice and seasoned practitioner alike. With an overwhelming desire to share our wealth of knowledge, the discovery that information ≠ change can lead us to despair at times.
In a recent interview with Dr. Azita Moradi (Consultant Psychiatrist) as part of our Access the Experts webinar series, I was quite surprised (and pleased) to hear that Azita sometimes spends awhole sessionwith a patient discussing the possibility of change, before even touching on the reality of change. Azita’s discussion surrounding the neuroscience of change and the challenges this may pose in the therapeutic relationship was fascinating, and certainly resonated with the practitioners taking part in the webinar. Azita’s interview was full of clinical gems reminding us that just as in other settings, if we give a man a fish he eats today but if we teach a man to fish we feed him for life. Hand and in hand with this, we need to have a strong understanding and appreciation of how to engage clients in making positive changes to their lives, often when it seems most difficult to do, such as in mental health patients.
Knowing how to improve behavioural change in patients generally, is integral to everyday practice, and its value cannot be underestimated.(more…)
I really enjoy mentoring practitioners in business – it’s a real privilege to be able to hear about each practitioners’ aspirations and challenges. A few weeks back I had the good fortune to speak with a fresh one! A practitioner who has only been in business for a short period of time. As always before our session, I looked over all aspects of her online presence from her website, to her practice newsletters, Facebook presence etc. Goodness how things have changed from when I graduated and you literally just hung out your shingle!! As much as the online world has created incredible opportunities for people working in integrative health and the public who use our services, I think it has also of course brought the ‘competition closer’.
Have you ever wondered what is the best way to grow your business? Not a cardboard cut-out, off-the-shelf kind of business that every business coach talks to, or somebody else’s business, your business? Business advice like naturopathy, according to Rachel, is about taking an individualised approach.
The traditional model of a naturopath was based on a one on one clinical practice model, while potentially still a path to success and satisfaction, this requires a totally fresh and contemporary perspective on what works today. In addition to this, many naturopaths feel a need to diversify their revenue stream in order to work smarter not harder. The naturopathic path is not always conventional and rarely the same for any two practitioners depending on personality, location, skill sets (including non-naturopathic), passion etc.
It’s taken a little while for me to collect my thoughts on this one. Initially there was a little flash of anger, frustration and a good deal of huffing and puffing when I heard about the RACGP guidelines recommending GPs say no to any requests from naturopaths for further investigation of their shared patients… but I’m over that now. In an interview on 702 ABC Sydney radio last week, Stephen Eddy, the vice president of ATMS, responded to these guidelines by suggesting that a blanket directive for GPs to ignore all requests from all naturopaths about all testing didn’t really sound sensible or appropriate. Here here! Surely, in the pursuit of evidence based medicine and discerning practice decisions, each case should be considered on an individual basis. I think Stephen Eddy gives GPs more credit for being able to make these judgements than their own association! (more…)
Recently a practitioner lamented that because of her clinic location she didn’t see company reps very often & felt this was a barrier to her staying current with her clinical knowledge. Of course, I had to beg to differ.
We’re quick to judge the medical profession for their reliance on commercial sources of CPD, overwhelmingly provided of course by the ‘drug reps’ but it seems we’re less fazed or concerned about ourselves being equally reliant, unduly influenced and misguided (might I add) by the people employed by the CAM manufacturers expressly to encourage us to sell more of their products! How does that make sense?
I go back to my very repetitive mantra: always be mindful of who delivers you the message/information etc. and what their agenda is.
By promoting their company’s products to us, focusing on the products’ strengths, ignoring or simply not making it a priority to know the limitations or weaknesses of the products or the evidence, ignoring or again simply not making it their business to know when superior products are being produced by competitors or when new evidence comes to light that puts into question their products,reps are only doing what they’re employed to do. But is it helpful and is it ok?(more…)
Lots of great conversations with practitioners following my recent post on the need to specialise – really thought provoking & clarifying ones which makes me think it’s been a good conversation starter. Key things that have come up for people are:
How do I choose my area of speciality…e.g. is a spin the bottle approach required?
Is specialisation sensible when you’re only just starting out or should you be taking everyone and anyone to begin with?
Is specialising even naturopathic given we have a holistic approach to health?? …e.g. I might say, I only do gut but for my IBS patients there’s a whole lot of stress management & mental health stuff that needs addressing along the way
Great questions 🙂 Now remember, all I’m offering here is my opinion, I don’t think there is a definitive answer to these but I think we should keep the conversation going as a way of keeping us thinking about theway we choose to practicerather than assuming there’s only one way to be a naturopath in clinic.(more…)
I had one of those conversations with a friend recently in which he was wondering out loud about what the point of it all is. Now don’t panic…this is not ‘suicidal ideation over a cuppa’ kind of stuff … no this is the regular existential crises that many of us experience about what it is we’re doing with our lives as opposed to what perhaps we should be doing, or as a good psychologist might frame it asking ourselves the question, ‘do my values align with my actions & choices in life?’. Maybe it’s my age, maybe it’s where we live but I find this is a conversation that’s coming up increasingly regularly amongst friends, colleagues and clients.
The wrestle between being V doing, earning V giving and perhaps money V meaning is such an age-old one and I think particularly pertinent to people in our profession. We’ve chosen the road less travelled, we’ve opted for a career that (chances are..) we knew was likely to earn less (money, respect, fame! 😉 ) than a lot of other paths we could have chosen and yet most of us hold the almost endangered position of being able to say, “I love what I do”. (more…)
I was chatting with a colleague today about a complicated & interesting case of hers, severe hypothyroidism coupled with overt hypercortisolemia (salivary cortisol up to 230!). This is a distance patient & she’s sharing care with a couple of other health professionals with conflicting ideas…tricky!!
So when my friend received an email last week to the tune of… “things are bad, everything is terrible if not worse”, then naturally she starts worrying: What has she missed? What’s gone wrong? What more could/should she have done? Is this some sort of aggravation to the treatment she’s recommended?
This is the place our minds naturally go when faced with these scenarios however one of the things I have really learned over years in clinic is that patients, like me, like everyone else I know, are labile, in the moment kind of creatures & we’re all vulnerable to having BPDs.(more…)
