How much has THE world🌏 changed in the last 2 years?! Have the changes within the field of Integrative Health been equally seismic? I’m sure there are many different aspects to speak to & we all have our own thoughts to share on this. I shared my thoughts on this topic in 2021 with AIMA conference attendees and now I’m pleased to share them with you as well. Of course, your position in the integrative health landscape influences your perspective. I’ve relished the ongoing opportunity to mentor and supervise clinicians of various persuasions (nats, nuts, GPs, pharmacists, psychologists etc) and at various levels of experience – from new grads to some seriously seasoned & stand-out successful practitioners, as well as being a member of several medical & health communities such as ACNEM, AIMA, NHAA , not to mention my inner circle being dominated by health professionals, to boot!
To equip me for these roles, I spend a lot of time reading research & I noticed in the first 18months of the pandemic a substantial jump in published papers on topics dear to my heart, such as…
Who visits a naturopath?
Why do they choose naturopathy/nutrition or integrative medicine?
What’s the early career experience like for our new grads?
&
Where do we sit now and where are we heading in the broader health landscape?
As you might have noted too – oodles of this research has come from Down Under ⚡💪 And btw – we have some serious gratitude owing to our publishing peers here in Australia, who are making huge contributions to making ‘us’ and our work visible in academia: (Amie Steel, Hope Foley, Erica McIntyre, Mathew Leach to name just a few!) So while our visibility is improving in academia – are we also being more ‘seen’ by the population as a whole – you know- the ones that make up our client base, stimulate our brains, engage our empathy and sustain our clinics staying open? The data, both published and from practitioner ‘word on the street’, tell us in unison
When the challenges we as humans face, grow in number and variety, the skills and our contributions Integrative Health professionals offer, in terms of advocacy, time-taking, a person- centred approach & individualisation of treatment is in demand more than ever. And on that note I want to leave you with one of my favourite quotes about person-centred care from Psychiatric Interviewing by Shea – but it is true no matter was the presenting complaint, nor where you are in the process of helping that patient:
“In person centred interviewing, the patient is not viewed as the problem but as a unique individual filled with solutions to the many problems that life invariably brings to all of us”
Shea 2017 page 9
Oh and P.S. The AIMA FACE-TO-FACE Conference is BACK in November this year!! And given the last time I did this, we were just on the eve of the pandemic and I raced home to just miss curfew…it feels like a perfect place to gently, gingerly come out the other side(??)!!🌈
The Power & Place of Integrative Medicine (Free Video)
As integrative health practitioners, regardless of the tools of our trade, we empower people and advocate for those that don’t feel powerful with respect to their health and well-being. We are compassionate and empathic, ‘alternative thinkers’ and notoriously dogged diagnostic detectives. This talk aims to remind us about our true super-powers. These distinguish us from other health professionals and service providers and are in greater demand than ever before, during this time of significant planetary and population change and challenge.