Bose Ravenel, MD


"Patients want more emphasis on health, healing and prevention of chronic illness rather than just diagnosis and treatment."


pract icing general pedi- atrics within the convention- al medical care system for some 30 years, I recently re- tired from general pediatric practice and have begun to practice


A


fter


Presently the ex- pansive growth of Integra- tive medicine has been fueled in integrative or


functional pediatric medicine after sev- eral years of intensive study and prepara- tion. This complete paradigm shift was precipitated by discovering the unique and promising concept of promoting the innate healing potential of the human body mostly through natural substances – nutri- ents and bioidentical hormones. Success- ful resolution or substantial improvement of chronic health problems in children previously intractable to conventional care often including specialists during the last two years of full-time traditional pediatric practice affirmed the value of this ap- proach, while increasing numbers of pa- tients are seeking this kind of care. A frequent question asked by parents


of patients, professional colleagues, and friends is “What is functional (or integra- tive) medicine? This is an important ques- tion worthy of discussion. The answer is difficult only in the sense that these terms refer to a completely different paradigm for the practice of medicine as we know it. The increasing demand for this kind of healing approach is evidenced in the fol- lowing summary from an overview of in- tegrative medicine:


22 NaturalTriad.com


part by a public discontent with con- ventional medicine and increasing consumer demand for medical advice on the subjects of lifestyle, nutrition, exercise, and natural therapies. Patients want more emphasis on health, healing and prevention of chronic illness rather than just diagnosis and treat- ment. Numerous peer-reviewed, pub- lished studies in the literature reflect the increasing popularity and use of integrative therapies in the populations of the United States and developed countries. The appearance of many Integrative and Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) depart- ments in major medical centers and schools (such as Harvard, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Stan- ford, Duke, University of Maryland, Scripps, MD Anderson and many oth- ers), speaks to the wide acceptance and increasing public demand for these services.


Traditional health insurance often


does not cover many of the services typi- cally included within the model of care known as integrative or functional medi- cine – or at best does so only “out of network.” Therefore, patients who seek


and utilize such care incur more out-of- pocket expenses than in traditional medi- cal care. The rapid growth of utilization of integrative medical care despite the rela- tively larger portion of the expense of this kind of care incurred by the consumers directly attests to growing recognition of value. Increasing numbers of individuals would not choose more expensive care in the short term if they did not believe they were receiving something of value worth the extra out-of-pocket expense.


What explains the rapid growth in this form of care? The reasons are many, but among the most fundamental are the following:


1. Functional or integrative care looks for underlying physiological processes going on at the cell level and assumes that multiple or chronic disease syn- dromes stem from common underlying causes rather than seeing clinical dis- eases as separate entities.


2. Basic biochemical processes are iden- tified, and in many cases, genetic influ- ences identified, for which there are available remedies. These are usually in the form of nutrients or supplements that target identified functional imbalances.


3. Pharmaceutical agents (medications) are utilized when appropriate and neces- sary, but natural agents such as nutrients, supplements, vitamins, and natural (“bioidentical”) hormones, are used when possible.


Functional or Integrative Medicine?


What is


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