The Circle of Healing

Dispelling the Myths and Embracing the Truths

I have been practicing in health care now for over thirty-six years. I am what some would call a “well-seasoned” practitioner. When I first entered nursing school in the late seventies, many things were taught much the same as they had been fifty years before. Now, don’t get me wrong: I had an excellent education by caring, competent instructors. But nursing school only laid the foundation for the rest of my career. In retrospect, there was (and is) no way possible for me-or any healthcare practitioner of any kind, including physicians-to learn all but the basics of the operations and care of the human body. The rest, my friend, is all practice-and learning, learning, oh so much more learning. And we all keep practicing and learning until we die. Or so I thought.

Now, nurses and doctors are required to maintain ongoing learning in the form of CEU’s (continuing education credits). There are many ways to get these credits. Attending conferences is the most common way, but there are online learning courses, grand rounds with a lead doctor teaching a specialized case, pharmaceutical reps and medical equipment device salesman, as well as returning to school for specializations. Except for returning to school, these are, for the most part, “guided” learning experiences. The information is guided by an organization wanting to provide information about any number of topics. Pharmaceutical companies sponsor many of these guided learning opportunities as ways to educate doctors and nurses about the newest medications. Medical device companies want surgeons to hear about the latest life-saving tools, the best knee replacement device, or the most up-to-date, safest pacemakers. But this information is not following the learning curve of current medical literature. It is fringe information. It guides us to make the medical decisions that someone else wants us to make. It causes us to allow others to think for us.

Despite the massive amount of information uncovered in the last 10, 20 or even 30 years, the foundational base of knowledge and practice of medicine has not changed. For some, that may be comforting. For those of us that have become dissatisfied with the status quo so to speak, and have followed the development and advances of medical thought and research, it is beyond frustrating. Per an article written by Virginia Commonwealth University’s VCU News, “little has changed in medical education in the more than 100 years since The Flexner Report set the gold standard for medical education in 1910 – a standard that continues in most schools today.” (University, 2017) This brings to the fore a deeper philosophical argument: exactly who is teaching nursing and medical students? To what standard of the current research are the universities who educate our nurses and doctors being held? The advances in anatomy, physiology and pathophysiology since the 1990’s has grown exponentially. The completion of the human genome project laid the foundation for the study of epigenetics. Has this been introduced in detail to medical students, or brushed over as incidental  findings? And what of the increase in knowledge about immunity and the gut? Although it is recommended that medical students take twenty-five credits in nutrition courses, many do not study nutrition enough to fully understand the relationship between nutrition and disease, or the fact that fully seventy to eighty percent of the immune system is seated in the gut.

There are so many paths to explore now as we-both patients and clinicians-seek to understand how our bodies work, how to stay well and how to heal. Medicine-the practice of it and the business of it- is at a crisis point and a crossroads. It cannot survive as an establishment or a business entity as it operates right now. Anything fractured is not functioning at its highest and best. And we desperately need for healing to work. It’s not about the practice of medicine. It IS about healing and how to create pathways to achieve it. We’ve been duped into thinking that illness is some mysterious cloud that hovers over is and at times randomly descends upon us to afflict us. And it’s just not the truth.

Where am I going with this? Am I taking aim to belittle hard working health care providers? Hardly. I am trying to prove a point, however. Medical education-be it for the nurse or the doctor-is outdated, antiquated, and thus humanity suffers. Gratefully, despite what some doctors may tell us, we can take advantage of books and the internet, and perform our own research. Ignorance is not bliss. Knowledge is power. And while doctors are hogtied to insurance company rules and regulations, pharmaceutical company’s dictates, and a short fifteen-minute visit with a patient in a meager attempt to diagnose complex medical problems, we can be ahead of the ballgame, and maybe, just maybe figure it out for ourselves. If we listen to our bodies. If love ourselves enough.

Here begins an exploration of the pathways to healing. I hope that you’ll take the journey with me.