Introduction
In
days of yore, the family doctor would be a man of the people.
He would visit your home when you were too sick to get out of
bed, he would deliver your babies, and attend to you on your
deathbed. He, and the occasional she, would spend all the time
necessary to not only take care of you and your whole family,
but he would also make you feel better just by his 'bedside
manner' - a lost art in this fast paced, technologically-driven
age. Today, not even the well-heeled American can get unlimited
access to their physician, and let us not forget the 45 million
who have no healthcare whatsoever.
There is so much happening in our lives here in the 21st century
that having too much is a never enough, and the drive to acquire
becomes an unhealthy obsession, causing an enormous amount of
stress. Conversely, the rapidly dwindling middle-class, the
average working stiff, the working poor, and the just plain
poor have even more stress; they are continually forced to try
and stay ahead of their expenses, but see their incomes sliding,
their jobs disappearing off the continent altogether, while
the cost of living just keeps climbing. They see their healthcare
eroded, or their benefits canceled. There are those for whom
healthcare simply stays too far out of reach. Houses and much-needed
vehicles are being repossessed; rents left unpaid, yet despite
all this we are constantly bombarded with the need to spend.
We all have to eat, but even that is becoming increasingly hard
to do. Prices on the grocery store shelves continue their meteoric
rise, and the poorer we get, the unhealthier we become. It's
cheap to eat the bad stuff, sometimes it's all there is.
Ironically, the result is the same for both the 'haves' and
the 'have nots' . . . rampant heart disease, obesity, diabetes,
and a myriad of other behavior-related illnesses. More of our
poor smoke, yet it is hideously expensive to do so - some would
say that it is a way of coping. This said, it is never too late
to make lifestyle changes, but the willingness has to be there
for measurable improvement to occur. No matter the socioeconomic
background, we have sadly evolved into a society of lazy, pill
popping, quick fix, disinvolved, bystanders instead of being
proactive in our health. For those lucky enough to have a doctor,
instead of questioning everything that he or she says and prescribes,
we prefer to blithely ignore the degradation of our bodies,
the ever-increasing and debilitating side effects and drug-drug
interactions, and just accept that this is the way it's supposed
to be. It isn't!
Today's medicine has become elitist, and reached such dizzying
heights of complexity that there is little wonder why so many
people are confused by their diseases, others marginalized and
excluded from even basic care, and all are being driven into
the arms of holistic practitioners on an ever increasing basis
in search of answers they don't always get. Unable to understand
what is happening to them, or why, it is left to people such
as Tina Steele, M.A., a Clinical Anthropologist, to demystify
disease processes, and to act as a bridge over the growing abyss
that exists between conventional (allopathic) and holistic medicine:
She believes that healthcare should be approached from both
perspectives, in what is known today as Integrative Medicine.
Tina recommends using 'modern' medicine principally for screening
purposes, as part of a comprehensive preventive healthcare regimen,
and treating the mind, body and spirit holistically, to restore
balance and to undo past lifestyle indiscretions, and by doing
really change lives and improve outcomes. She says we look instead
to our wellness, instead of just our health. Our future and
not just our today.
Tina
Steele, MA
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Visit Tina's website
at: www.myhealthnavigator.com
