The 5 Top Benefits of Integrative Medicine
Have you found yourself growing increasingly frustrated with the current state of allopathic health care in the United States? If so, you are the part of the frustrated, wary, and disillusioned majority of Americans who perceive that our current gold standard of conventional medicine is simply no longer working. In the wake of the 21st century, the traditional, expensive, and one-size-fits-all approach can no longer be supported by new scientific findings that promote treating every patient individually and holistically, according to their unique health needs.
A modern patient is health-conscious, choosing to be involved and eager to actively participate in optimizing their own health journey, while a modern, highly trained, skilled, and devoted primary care physician encourages education, prevention, self-care, and wishes to build a partnership with their patients to collaborate and achieve the best outcome for each individual. The problem is, in an already overextended, ineffective, and bloated health care system — not designed to accommodate these new requirements and approaches — these goals seem to be just about impossible to achieve.
Integrative medicine — a holistically-oriented healing practice that combines age-old wisdom, proven and effective alternative treatments, and the best of modern achievements of health sciences that give the backbone of traditional allopathic health care — offers such a solution that could revolutionize medicine as we know it.
Among its many benefits, the five main reasons that integrative medicine stands out as the most modern and optimal way to wholesome health are:
Focusing on Prevention
Unlike conventional health care, integrative medicine primarily focuses on prevention to support optimal health prior to disease development, as well as reinforcing the body's innate ability to heal itself, utilizing lifestyle enchantments, mind-body medicine, and in-depth patient education.
A Holistic Approach
A primary care physician offering integrative care always focuses on the whole person rather than on seemingly separate organ systems and organ-specific health problems. By considering each patient’s immediate environment, activity levels, lifestyle choices, social relationships, and emotional well-being, an all-encompassing view is obtained that can truly offer in-depth answers to one's emerging problems.
A Model That Is Based on Relationship and Collaboration
An open, honest, and collaborative patient-physician relationship, grounded in trust and mutual respect, is an inescapable and highly desired component of modern medical care, which comes naturally and with ease in the warm, empathetic, and friendly atmosphere of an integrative physician's office.
Personalized Care
When it comes to individual health, one size does not fit all. The goal of a primary care physician who practices integrative medicine is to carefully uncover all components that affect their patients' physiological and emotional well-being. There is also a commitment to find the root cause that undermines health and creates a combination of unique problems that can't always be solved by applying cookie-cutter solutions.
Conventional and Complementary Treatments Supported by Science
By blending scientifically sound allopathic methods with the safest and most efficient solutions of alternative medicine, patients receive an all-encompassing care that truly promotes health, from prevention to highly effective disease management.
AUTHOR
Dr. Payal Bhandari M.D. is one of U.S.'s top leading integrative functional medical physicians and the founder of SF Advanced Health. She combines the best in Eastern and Western Medicine to understand the root causes of diseases and provide patients with personalized treatment plans that quickly deliver effective results. Dr. Bhandari specializes in cell function to understand how the whole body works. Dr. Bhandari received her Bachelor of Arts degree in biology in 1997 and Doctor of Medicine degree in 2001 from West Virginia University. She the completed her Family Medicine residency in 2004 from the University of Massachusetts and joined a family medicine practice in 2005 which was eventually nationally recognized as San Francisco’s 1st patient-centered medical home. To learn more, go to www.sfadvancedhealth.com.