Today, we are going to try and look into the profile of the typical Healthy Healing Center patient. What do they have in common? Are they fearful, insecure people? Easily led down the garden path? Ill informed? Are they below average in terms of education and social recognition, or standing? Who are they that they choose forms of treatment that are sometimes shunned, sometimes denigrated, and very often misrepresented, in the media and by other doctors who have no clue as to what they are talking about when they talk about things beyond both their knowledge as well as their practical experience?
The usual slant reads something like this, “Poor suckers in the clutches of a con artist. We need to help them from being misled by people who are only after their money. There should be a law against that.” But is that cliché of the poor sucker tenable who puts his health on the line by letting 'a con artist' experiment with it? Does it reflect any reality in alternative medicine, at all or to what degree? At Healthy Healing, or at any other comparable establishment?
It does NOT.
Let’s go through the list of some of the clients who have consulted me, availed themselves of my services, over the years, and then recommended these same services to family and friends. Among them are three published authors. There is the CEO of a spa consulting enterprise, the co-owner of a small pharmaceutical firm, a retired Army Colonel and someone who has been the GM for a number of 5-star hotels on three continents. There is a retired OT nurse and a Buddhist monk. Actually, there are plenty of people like that. Are these easy patients, in the sense that a 'con artist' could talk them into anything, just with charm and good looks, or by making a bunch of unsubstantiated, or even false promises?
Let me ask you back, does anyone become and stay General Manager of 5-star hotels by being stupid? Or, can you write a book, if you are NOT curious, NOT inquisitive?
Actually, ‘inquisitive’ is the word that best describes my patients! They want to know what they are about to do, before they engage and do it. They insist on being informed. I need to sit down with them and explain everything. An average consultation with an average physician lasts 10 minutes maximum, no matter if specialist or general physician. A consultation with me can last up to an hour, on some occasions even longer than that. And I happily oblige. Smart medicine is for smart people, only. One needs to be informed, in order to be smart. For practicing as a doctor and receiving alternative medicine as a patient information, education is key.
Likewise, we are NOT believers. When it comes to what is generally referred to as ‘alternative medicine’, I am most assuredly NOT a believer, and neither are the clients who are seeking my assistance. I subscribe to the same view as bestselling author Michael Murray N.D., “When people refer to me as an expert in ‘alternative medicine’ I usually correct them. I am a proponent of what I like to refer to as rational medicine, which combines the best of both conventional medicine and alternative methods. We all have been helped by the wonders of modern hi-tech medicine. It can make a life-or-death-difference when heroic measures are needed. As far as improving our general level of health, however, I believe it is woefully deficient. Modern [allopathic] medicine fails us most in the treatment of chronic degenerative diseases such as heart disease, high blood pressure, arthritis, and diabetes. In many diseases, the natural approach is simply more rational. Rather than relying on drugs and surgery to suppress symptoms, I believe it makes more sense to use natural, non-invasive techniques whenever possible to promote health and healing.” Or very simply put, I am NOT a believer and I don’t believe in any form of medicine at the exclusion of other forms, because when you ARE a believer, you CANNOT be RATIONAL.
Regarding the prevention of heart disease, the previous President of the Republic of India, Abdul Kalam is on record of proposing to adhere to a similar view, “The ideal practice should be to provide only the minimum essential treatment instead if going in for surgical intervention as a routine management of the disease.” Following in his footsteps, the actor Akshay Kumar and the singer and songwriter Jagjeet Singh, among others, also support the cause by preventing heart disease through methods of detoxification.
Smart people like Abdul Kalam, a first rate scientist in his own right and not merely a politician and thus the puppet of a lobby, have made themselves smart by being inquisitive. Based on their research, they can come to rational decisions, regarding their health and regarding other matters.
When one famous textbook of Internal Medicine states that “in cases when a drug causes serious, even dangerous side effects, this same drug should nevertheless be prescribed, plus another drug against the side effects,” by suggesting something like this, the textbook does NOT follow a rational approach any longer. For most cases it thereby proposes the human body and mind to become the dumping ground for dangerous chemicals. Such is NOT the viewpoint of a rational person. Such is the viewpoint and approach of a blind believer!