Travelling Roadshow Take 2 And A Request For Your Help

Hey folks!

You may have heard that I have to step back from my practice a wee bit over the next few months. And while this has caused some consternation amongst some of you, I want you to rest assured that the clinic is staying open and the services we provide will be continuing. Everyone has detailed instructions moving forward over the next few weeks and months, and I’ll be back and forth a lot. But there are some phases in the other provinces that I just have to be on the ground for. 

I want to assure you that these things are all necessary and benefit Nova Scotia in the long run as I will be setting up some collaborations and getting training in things to bring back to implement here – stuff like ways to structure flow through integrative medicine clinics to optimize their functioning so that patients receive the best quality care, and how to set up some specialized supports for people in our community with mental health and addictions who required targeted care but are often continually passed around due to lack of resources, etc. I will be around off and on, so I am hoping to still be available for treatments sometimes and return to full practice sometime in the late fall, but my schedule will be super patchy and is still very fluid at this point. So, I have a huge favour to ask of all of you. I know that it can be difficult when you’ve established a bond with a particular practitioner that seeing someone else can be daunting. And many of you have a tendency to, rather than come and see the other practitioners that I have found so none of you will go without in my absence, just wait for me to come back. And though I take this as the genuine complement that it is, I’m going to be gone too long for that this time. If all of you just decide to stop coming in because you won’t see anyone but me, then we can’t afford to continue to run a number of our free service programs from the clinic. I don’t draw a salary from the clinic. My fees all go towards helping others. So with me having to step away, that is a giant chunk of revenue that we will no longer be bringing in and a number of our services will have to stop. This is what has made it an extremely difficult decision to make. But, if I don’t go and do these things, then all progress stops and no one benefits. So I need your help to make sure the clinic stays open and functioning so that this win can stay a Nova Scotia win. And I have lined up excellent practitioners to take over my patients for me while I’m away.

As many of you know, I have worked extremely hard to keep things going out here while we’ve established links in other provinces. It’s been so very important to us that this doesn’t become another situation where a company just leaves Nova Scotia for greener pastures elsewhere. That doesn’t benefit Nova Scotia. I refuse to just abandon it in its time of need. But I haven’t been able to go get the stuff done that I need to to be able to bring it back here so that it CAN benefit Nova Scotia, due to that wonderful and amazing loyalty. So I thought I’d just ask. 

Will all of you help to keep the clinic open and running so that there’s something for me to come back to and so that we can keep doing all of our great work for you folks and for the community? It’s a short time frame – a few months at most. And it will help so many in our community that desperately need these links properly established and these services set up. But if it all crumbles while I’m gone, then it’s all been for naught. 

I actually really need your help and support on this one. And if you’re unsure which practitioner would be the best fit for you, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me via text or email and I will still totally help you navigate things so that you can find your perfect fit. That part will never change.

So please, will you help me with this one while I’m away? 

Heroes

Today was a hard day for me, both as a person and as a boss.

I have watched my employees for the last couple of weeks work tirelessly to advocate to save the life of someone who has been passed around the system to the point that I’m not sure what the outcome is going to be, but I know that the effort that went in to saving this young person’s life has been nothing short of exceptional.

I have never been so proud of a team of people in all of my life.

When we began Unified, this was not the direction I expected it to take. I did not expect that we would be on the front lines of this crisis. The intention was to figure out how to design proper structure around integrating alternative medicine therapies into traditional medicine practices. I did not anticipate that before we even managed to begin the project, that our emergency departments would be overrun. I certainly never would have dreamed that 8 months in and those emergency departments would be turning away people with broken bones.

The work our team has done for this young person hasn’t been because they were being paid for it – they weren’t. This person doesn’t have any money. And there’s no funding for this that we can apply for. We did this between appointments with other people. We did this on our off hours. We did this because someone’s life was on the line. We did this because we care. And we do it every day. This person isn’t the first one, and they won’t be the last. But this one was a hard fought battle and it has impacted us all deeply.

I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but I know that the people that I will be facing it with are some of the most exceptional, compassionate, dedicated people I have ever met and I am honoured that they choose to work for us.

To everyone at Unified – thank you. I am in awe of all of you. There are no words big enough to express my gratitude.

To everyone coming in booking massage, osteo and naturopath appointments and counselling sessions - my humblest and sincerest thank you. You are all making this possible.

You are all heroes.

We Need A Revolution

I have been avoiding doing this. 

I’m not exactly sure why. But I haven’t wanted to write this post. I’ve been avoiding it for months. 

It’s occurring to me that that’s kind of what we’ve all been doing. We’re avoiding dealing with this really huge issue because, well, it’s just so big and it feels beyond us to do. But reading the articles over the last few days from the nurses and the paramedics, well, I can’t wait any longer to address this with all of you. 

We need to talk about healthcare. 

We need to talk about what we CAN do to help out here. Because this is an issue that affects all of us. It’s not just on doctors or the healthcare system to figure out and solve for us. It’s on us too. And much like choosing not to use bottled water, or not using single-use plastic bags at the grocery store, there ARE things that each and every one of us CAN do to help out. There are things that we can do to try to alleviate some of the burden on the system. And that’s not to say that we stop putting pressure where it needs to be to create long lasting changes within the system. But it’s much like taking ibuprofen for a sprained wrist while also doing the physical therapy that ensures it heals properly, there are things that we can do short-term to help with non-emergency patient care to give a little pain-relief for the hospitals while we also work towards making the changes required to heal the system long-term. 

There are a lot of people who have non-urgent or even non-medical issues who have no other option but to use emergency services because there just isn’t access to services elsewhere. Not only that, but most people don’t know what is or isn’t a medical issue. They aren’t supposed to. There are professionals with this training who are supposed to tell them. But when those professionals are required elsewhere to deal with the actual medical or emergency cases, it leaves a lot of people unattended to. It’s tricky because those people need to be seen. But someone who has chronic low back pain that just flared up again, who has no family doctor, all of the walk-ins are already full because it’s past 9am, and they are in agony, they take the spot of someone who fell and broke their ankle, delaying that person from receiving the care they require. 

If we can take the patients out of emergency departments who don’t need to be there – and most of them don’t want to have to be there, there just really aren’t any other options – then it frees up a number of spots for people with actual emergency and medical conditions. It doesn’t fix the system. But it provides some temporary relief. And for that patient with the broken ankle, it makes a really crappy day a little bit better because they get seen a little sooner. 

That was the idea behind the Unified Health Triage Centres. 

So here’s where people start shouting at me again about privatized healthcare – we’re not trying to be ‘private healthcare’. We’re trying to use resources that people already have to pay for and just use them in a way that helps alleviate some strain on the overburdened healthcare system. Yes, yes, I know, in the short-term you may have to pay for an appointment with the nurse practitioner – we tried to get her salary covered while we got up and running but were consistently denied everywhere. It’s a problem with the provincial system. But the beauty of the model that we came up with is that if the other services we provide are utilized to a certain amount they can pay for her. That was the idea. The same way that the front desk staff’s salaries are covered by a certain percentage of profits from the massage therapists and osteopathic appointments, if we had enough practitioners seeing enough patients, we could provide the services of the nurse practitioner for free to the public and pay her like we would the front desk staff. 

None of this, however, made its way in to any of the media articles written about us. Nor did they highlight the work we were doing to try to change the legislation that means that appointments with a nurse practitioner can’t be covered by MSI unless a doctor interacts with the patient first, meaning that, in a doctor shortage, nurse practitioner run clinics can only happen as long as the NSHA pays for them. Nurse practitioners cannot operate as independent practitioners the way family doctors can. And there is a waitlist a mile long to get funding for nurse practitioners through the NSHA. 

Given this, yes, you have to pay for an appointment with a nurse practitioner with us. But the idea was that people only had to until we reached a critical mass of appointments with the other practitioners and then we could self-fund our nurse practitioner, returning to being able to provide free healthcare. We told everyone to keep their receipts because as soon as we could we would reimburse them. It was supposed to be a short-term necessary evil. But then we circumvent the backlogs with the NSHA and suddenly there’s a way to free nurse practitioners to be able to practice to their full extent without being handcuffed by ridiculous and out-dated policy while we wait the years it will take for those policies to be changed. We can provide free healthcare services without requiring funding from government to do so. 

I can understand how this was disconcerting to the public system.

It means that ‘Wellness’ could suddenly become a new system. If there was the possibility to remove the control of healthcare services from ‘healthcare’… well… sh*t. That’s a revolution apparently no one was ready for… 

Imagine, the healthcare monopoly taken away from doctors and shared with nurse practitioners… Well, that just couldn’t happen.  

And, oh, the backlash… 

But we’re still here. 

And we’re still on target for being able to make this revolution possible. 

All we need is you. 

So all of you now have a choice. Do you use the services of a wellness clinic whose profits go into the pockets of the owners, or do you use the services of a wellness clinic who uses the profits to pay for nurse practitioners to provide free healthcare services outside of the broken government system while it takes the time required to fix itself? 

That’s a choice we all can make. Like choosing reuseable bags instead of single-use plastic. Consumers have a power that has been demonstrated over and over. So the next time you need a massage, or don’t know where to go to talk about making some healthy changes in your life with a naturopath, or want to talk about the grief you’re feeling over the loss of a loved one, your choice to use a Unified Health clinic means providing free healthcare to someone who doesn’t have a family doctor, can’t wait all day at a walk-in because they desperately need to work, and frees up a spot at an emergency department until the policies get changed that allow nurse practitioners to bill MSI and operate independently. 

The choice is, always, yours. 

Till next time, Folks…

Accepting Help

One of the reasons I started Unified Health was to help people navigate the wildly disorganized world of wellness. I’m still a researcher at heart, so it’s always bothered me that we don’t have a lot of good metrics to determine when someone’s chronic low back pain, when not caused by something like a herniated disc or compressed nerve root, is due to a dietary thing (studies suggest that chronic low back pain can be due to gut health, including dietary intolerances) so that person would be better off seeing a naturopath, versus caused by a rotated tibia that is now compressing their common peroneal nerve (which is a very frequent cause of ‘throwing your back out while shoveling snow’ – I’ll write a post on ways to shovel snow safely shortly) which means you’d be better off seeing an osteopath, versus caused by contracture of the psoas muscles, in which case you’d be better off seeing a massage therapist – you get the idea. 

I wanted to come up with an objective measurement tool that would be able to assess a person’s biomechanics, gait, movement patterns, etc, that would help to quickly and easily reproduce what I’ve spent years learning how to do for my patients. That way, we could very easily get this information into the hands of patients so that they weren’t wasting time and money on treatments that weren’t effective for what they had. It would also provide a way of collecting data around which treatments and therapists were the most affective for treating specific conditions. 

That was the heart of Unified Health. 

It was meant to be an evidence-based way of helping people navigate the world of ‘wellness care’. Because let’s face it, there are a lot of people who will just take your money and treat you for years without you actually getting better. And since the wellness world is all a for-profit industry, people can throw a lot of money at something and be no better off for it. That bothers me. And it should bother you too. 

But, here’s the problem with that – there’s no money in the public system to focus on wellness. Because our current health care crisis means that people no longer have access to even base level care. That’s what happened while we were developing Unified. People can’t even get access to life-saving prescriptions right now. The people coming to us desperate for help had medical issues we couldn’t fully address because they needed access to medical care. So we’ve been trying to find ways to work with the traditional system as well. Which has been frought with difficulties and set backs. Much like any healing journey can be. 

What I’m finding interesting about the traditional healthcare system is that it desperately needs some support right now. But it’s so used to being the thing that supports everyone else that it has no idea how to accept outside help. This is something I can really relate to. 

When you’re the person in charge of keeping everyone else running, taking time and admitting that you also need help is like, the worst possible thing you could do. It feels like you have no choice but to just keep doing whatever coping things you have been doing for as long as you can and pray something changes. Which, sure, yeah, that’s one way of doing it. But the truth is, when you’re that person, if you crumble, everyone else crumbles. 

The wellness world side of things taught me that the traditional way we go about ‘being strong’ is crap. The only way you help others is by accepting help for yourself. Otherwise you burn yourself out and no one gets anywhere. 

That’s where our traditional system is right now – it’s learning how to accept help from outside sources. And that’s a wonderful and messy process, but I am very proud of it for taking those steps. 

The super exciting and fascinating part of it for me is that we get to be along for the ride of that process. We get to help support it through its transition of learning how to be helped. Which, as a wellness care practitioner, that’s kind of like hitting the holy grail of helping. 

So, for what it’s worth, I’m proud of you, Traditional Health Care, for taking the steps towards a healthier future. Just like I’m proud of every patient I get to help support on their own wellness journeys. 

On robots and hurt feelings...

I’m just getting started on this whole ‘putting myself out there’ journey and it’s such an interesting one. There’s a lot of information available for folks who are looking to build their careers and create successful marketing strategies to build their fan base and all of that. Which, I mean, sure, okay. That’s helpful for a lot of people. But that’s not my problem. My problem is and has always been that I don’t want the attention. So many people have gotten the panic stricken, ‘OhGodpleasedon’tdothat!’ response from me when they, very helpfully and well meaningly, say they’ll post or share something about their visit with me on Facebook or Instagram. Because oh God, the idea of life getting busier and crazier than it already is… the very last thing I have wanted has been MORE people finding out about me. So where’s all the helpful advice and tips and tricks for the folks like me? Who are actually extremely well established in their careers, know a lot of stuff, and don’t actually want MORE people to know about them? There’s already lots for the folks looking to grow their businesses and build more clients, but what about the folks who are already over-run and need advice on how to manage what they’ve already got so they can accomplish their goals? What if your dream is a small one and life just seems to have other plans for you? Then what? 

The thing I’ve learned is that the people who have the most helpful advice and the most knowledge are usually so busy that they just don’t have the time to write the books and do the social media thing. But we’re also control freaks who refuse to let other people do it for us because we have very specific ideas about what we would like created. But to actually find the time to sit down and communicate that vision to someone… Well, that just doesn’t happen. And so all of this knowledge and useful information just sits there, collecting dust instead of getting out there and changing the world the way it was meant to - the way it should. And also, because the folks who are the kinds of people to sit in those back offices who don’t mind doing all of that meticulous work to collect the data required to develop those life changing theories - well, they also typically aren’t the kind of people who then know how to get up in front of a crowd of thousands of people and actually, you know, talk about it… 

This is why I love SciComm and everyone involved. It’s amazing and brilliant and I love that we now have all of these avenues to get information out there that is actually written by real scientists and researchers instead of by well meaning reporters who are trying to decipher technical jargon heavy research papers and translate that into ‘human language’ for your every day person. I also love that your every day person is now talking about the latest neuroscience findings on MS research, or that there are entire Netflix series like Cosmos that bring all of these amazing ideas into great ‘why science is important in your daily life’ examples. I love that a lot of the pressure of having to be a trailblazer is now off and I can post stuff like this and maybe, hopefully, not actually be noticed and just hide out among all of you out here doing such great work and just kind of blend in with the crowd… Because I don’t mind putting information out there. But does anyone really need to know that I did it? Can I do it under a pen name? That’s more my style. Maybe we can even take pictures of someone else’s face and put those on the website and then that person can go speak at conferences for me and wear an earpiece and I’ll just tell them what to say and sure that sounds really elaborate, but I really think it’s the best option… No? Oh… Dang. 

But it has occurred to me that maybe lots of other people feel exactly that way too. People who read other people’s brave opinion pieces on things like why equal representation at conferences is important, and then read the comments and see the harassment they face for being brave enough to express their opinion and we sink right back down in our chairs and focus on something else for a while. And the interesting thing about that is that I wasn’t at all bullied in high school. I have really never faced backlash. I have pretty much always been well regarded and highly thought of. I take criticism well. I don’t get my feelings hurt easily. I love debate and well reasoned arguments. I hope people poke holes in my theories and point out where I’ve missed something because that’s the process of science. If I’ve missed a crucial element in my approach well then Good God Man SAY SOMETHING!!! Don’t let me publish that sh*t as is!! Give me the opportunity to refine my theories and my findings before making myself look like a complete ass. It’s a kindness peer reviewers do for each other and I love the entire process. 

Where I get hung up is when other people read those things and then THEY get upset over the way someone said something, and now because I’m not upset by it I’m the freak who doesn’t understand social protocols, and then I get pushed into having to react to show that I’m not a robot and I never do that convincingly, and then me and that person get into an argument because I didn’t react correctly, and then I feel like I have to defend my non-reaction, and they feel like they have to teach me how to do ‘Human Emotions’ correctly, and I’d really rather just avoid the entire thing. Because me putting myself out here like this means inviting other people into my life who tend to react FOR me. And that’s just a whole lot of chaos and hurt feelings that really never needed to happen. My nightmare is starting some giant global debate and the issue getting completely lost in the hurt feelings on both sides. And don't laugh - I've actually seen that happen. Been right in the middle of that exact situation a few times, in fact. THAT’S what stops me. Stops me right in my tracks. So I avoid publishing anything because ohdearGod lets just avoid that whole thing right from the get go. 

But! Do you want to know the super amazing great thing I’ve been finding out by doing this? No one actually cares all that much about what I have to say. I mean, they like the science and whatever, but that entire process of starting accidental arguments from my non-reactions seems to no longer be an issue. Which is AMAZING. 

I have officially learned how to successfully ‘lose myself in the crowd’. Which really, that’s all I’ve ever really wanted to know anyway… 

So thank you, SciComm. Apparently, I just needed to wait for the crowd to, you know, show up… And now I can be an anonymous face within it while still maintaining my identity. It’s every nerd’s dream come true.

Coming out of the shadows

Those of you who know me know how much I dislike drawing any attention to myself. If I could move through life as an invisible force, I’d be happy. I get by on the minimal amount necessary to show that I exist, and do my best to hide in the background of any event, class, meeting, whathaveyou. 

If you’ve had the opportunity to be in a treatment room with me, you know that it’s not that I don’t have anything worth saying. I never shut up as long as there’s only a couple of people around to hear it. But get more than five people in a room and I prefer to sit back and let others have the spotlight, thanks. 

Now, part of that is from the lingering effects of the brain injury suffered from my car accident and the aphasia that becomes more pronounced when I’m excited or nervous. But mostly, I like to be pretty low key and hidden. 

A lot of us are like that. It was one of the things that I absolutely loved about TED Talks when they first started - often times the people with some the most important things to say don’t because they like to hide out in the back of the crowd and not draw attention to themselves. But it’s so important for them to get out there and share their knowledge. The things they spend lifetimes learning and discovering often remain hidden in the recesses of their minds unless someone forces them into the spotlight and hands them a microphone. 

It’s difficult to measure your accumulated knowledge when you don’t have anything to measure it against. Sure, I know a lot of things, but there are plenty of people who know more than me. And there are so many things I still don’t know. So who am I to speak about anything with any kind of authority? All of the things I know are readily available in journals and websites and books that you can easily access. I just assume that if someone wants to know something, they can look it up. 

It’s becoming apparent to me that that’s the wrong perspective to have. And that there are a lot of connections between the material that I’ve read that I have made, but apparently not a lot of others have. So many of us are like that. We live with the accumulated knowledge of our lives work inside our heads all day every day. We forgot that other people don’t know this stuff. And it’s so important that we all feel comfortable sharing what we know. Because together, we know a lot of stuff. 

So I’m going to start posting here some stuff about things. And maybe you’ll like what you read. And maybe it’ll spur you to do some more research on your own. And maybe it’ll just be interesting to read about the inner workings of my mind from time to time. But tread carefully, for the night is dark and full of terrors, and so too is my mind… bwahahaha!