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To help you understand our care and how the services we offer may benefit you, I would like to explain our philosophy of care in more detail.
Many of you have had conventional allopathic health care provided by your personal primary care provider (PCP) medical doctor and hospital specialty physicians. This is the dominant form of medicine in the Western world that includes the U.S. that is covered by most insurance plans. This form of medical care is focused on the diagnosis of a disease and on relieving symptoms mainly with pharmaceutical medications and surgery.
Throughout the world many types of healing practices have been utilized by different cultures over the centuries of our human existence. In the U.S. these approaches may not fit the "medical model" of care determined by the American Medical Association (AMA) so have become called alternative medicine therapies.
For example, chiropractic health care that has been professionally practiced in the U.S. since 1895 won a landmark Supreme Court ruling against the AMA that forced the AMA to stop trying to eliminate the practice of chiropractic care in the U.S. as it was not part of the "medical model" of health care. This ruling has allowed chiropractic care to become an accepted part of our current health care system and is the largest group of licensed doctors promoting the alternative health care movement in the U.S. Many other alternative therapies and practices exist like acupuncture, herbal medicine and meditation.
"Alternative" may be interpreted as doing something against the mainstream and in place of your current medical therapy. I feel that this is a poor choice of words. A better term for alternative medicine is complementary medicine. Complementary medicine therapies are non-invasive and non-pharmaceutical techniques that can serve as a complement or in addition to your conventional medical therapy. Integrative means these therapies should be integrated into a program of health care that serves to be wholisitic in approach and focused on the entire body. These therapies when properly chosen and administered serve to enhance the healing from injuries, recovery from illness and promote overall well being.
At the Natural Family Health Care Center we help you understand how to properly integrate complementary natural therapies into your health care. We utilize the most researched and clinically tested natural therapies, supplements and plant botanicals in our care. A natural approach to health care is in tune with the intrinsic natural design of human beings and recognizes the importance of individual differences - genetic, physical, biochemical and emotional. Natural medicine therapies focus on promoting the body's innate ability to heal itself and in natural health we believe that good health is not merely the absence of disease. It is, as Dorland's Medical Dictionary defines it, "a state of optimal physical, mental and social well-being . . ." that allows one to live a full, active life.
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