09/20/2020
This was a video I had to watch in my Integrative Medicine class. A lot of you who have known me for a while may know that I support lifestyle modification and other types of healthier changes as better approaches to healthcare. This was extremely important to me in picking a PA program. The first time I applied, I realized a lot of the programs weren’t exactly about the type of integrative medicine I personally wanted to learn more about. Keep in mind- all of Medicine is integrative to some approach anyways. For example; providers of care will always refer out if you have an illness or problem that is out of their scope of care.
However, I personally cared a lot about learning about other modalities of care that may not even be found in a normal hospital setting. A lot of times this can include eastern medicine approaches too, such as acupuncture or dietary therapy. In my program the vast majority of my education is surrounded by western medicine (which I also really wanted to learn about but NEED to know about for most patients and most jobs), however my programs allows us to really explore other types of non-traditional approaches too and teaches us WHO to refer our patients to for that. As a PA, I most likely won’t be treating you with eastern medicine myself, but because I learned enough about it, I can refer you properly if you would like to try other things.
In my program I have access to acupuncture, chiropractor& eastern medicine dietary therapies for free! This allows me to try these modalities out after learning about them and actually share the benefits of it with my one day patients!
If you are going into medicine and want to learn about other approaches I would urge you to research schools properly that also care about that! If you are a patient looking for other options, find a integrative medicine provider of care who can refer you to the right person.
