Although America has a vast and varied medical landscape, most Americans experience only what is available in the primary care and specialty clinics in or near their communities. This standard-of-care medicine is covered by insurance and supported by a legion of pharmacies found virtually everywhere.
While mostly allopathic and pharmaceutical when used for infectious and chronic diseases, conventional medicine’s care for acute illness, trauma, and rehabilitation knows few competitors. For wellness care, the focus is on routine screenings and cursory advice on diet, exercise, and giving up harmful habits. Rarely, however, do allopathic physicians have the knowledge or tools to search for the root causes of illness, and seldom does insurance pay for these.
How pharmaceutical-based medicine became mainstream care is a long and fascinating account best left to medical historians. One brief story, however, illustrates the competitive nature that can underlie any discipline, and medicine is no exception. Although America could boast 22 homeopathic colleges and 15,000 practitioners in 1900, this energy-based medical system from Germany lost out over time to the advent of antibiotics and vaccines, and the increasingly powerful American Medical Association, which represents most physicians in mainstream healthcare today.
Yet, thanks to patient choice and to America’s free market system, many drugless approaches have managed to survive; many are even thriving despite being largely private-pay. Today, Chiropractic, Naturopathy, Environmental Medicine, Ayurvedic, Medical Herbalism, Functional Medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and energy-based systems such as Homeopathy, Acupuncture, and Bioenergetics, along with many other wellness modalities, are all part of America’s varied and evolving medical landscape.
Of the many choices we make in daily life, the foods we eat and the medicines we choose may be the most critical. And not just for personal health; the health of the communities where we live is also impacted by the healthcare choices of residents.
So here we ask the question: what role does type of medicine play in our ability to live well, and especially to live well locally? What type of medicine creates the most resilient and well people, makes the best use of local resources, and adds the most self-sufficiency, sovereignty and economic activity to a local community?
In short, what does a ‘living well locally’ community need to consider about its healthcare system and the medical options available to its residents? When a community takes health as an economic strategy, what type of medicine becomes essential?
LWL suggests that the best medicine for personal and place-based wellness is that which can do three things: 1) find the root causes of illness so that patients will understand how they became sick, 2) personalize treatment protocols based on a patient’s history, testing, and circumstances, and 3) support the body’s innate capacity to self-heal. Knowing root causes motivates us to change and prevent the return of illness; personalizing treatment makes recovery more effective; and nourishing self-healing capacity reduces dependence on therapies. Taken together, these qualities create resilient patients who do better in challenging times like pandemics; plus, they make solid contributions to healing illness and maintaining wellness.
Many things that cause and/or contribute to illness can be found in our everyday lives: foods, habits, activities, environmental toxins, stress, relationships. This is good news because it means we can address root causes and take control from within our homes and communities - IF we have access to the types of medicine that build wellness.
Follow-up posts will look in more detail at the process of healing in general and at some of the various types of non-mainstream medicine that are surviving and thriving in America today . . . all with the intent to find what fits best with a vision of living both well and locally.