How Holistic is Your Doc?

By Victoria Dolby Toews, MPH

Finding a doctor? Easy. Finding the right doctor? That’s trickier. These five guidelines can help

In the fast-paced, insurance-managed world of conventional medicine, here’s what often happens: You hand over your co-pay, get six minutes of face time with your doctor, and leave—often with a prescription in hand. If you’re lucky, you remembered to bring up the sinus infections, low back pain, and sleep trouble that have been plaguing you for the last year. If not, there’s always next year.

“For decades, options have been limited for those seeking a true partnership with their health care adviser,” notes Andrew Weil, M.D., a Harvard-educated physician and author of best-sellers including Healthy Aging: A Lifelong Guide to Your Physical and Spiritual Well-Being. “More often, physicians tell patients what they should do, without complete explanations as to why.” That has made for an unsatisfactory experience for patients—and, worse, lapses in care.

Recently the healing landscape has begun to change, though, thanks to an approach Weil and countless other providers have embraced: integrative medicine. A relatively recent concept, it pairs a solid scientific medical base with an emphasis on prevention—and helping the body heal itself. As Roberta Lee, M.D., medical director of the Continuum Center for Health and Healing in New York City, explains, “Integrative medicine isn’t a specialty, but rather a perspective that synthesizes the best of 21st century conventional medicine with the wisdom of ancient medical practices.”

Providers embracing this perspective run the gamut from naturopaths to mainstream physicians (see “Choosing Your Doc,” below). In fact, an increasing number of M.D.s are open to the healing power of therapies ranging from nutrition and herbs to stress-reduction methods and Traditional Chinese Medicine.

If you love your doctor, you’re in luck. But if you’re looking for a practitioner who’s in sync with your own healing philosophy and sees you as a whole person, read on. We’ve asked top integrative medicine practitioners to tell us what qualities mark a holistic doc. Consider how your current practitioner measures up—and if she comes up short, use these criteria to find someone new.

1 | You get the time of day.

As a general rule, holistically inclined practitioners spend a longer amount of time with their patients, especially on the first visit, says Ronald Stram, M.D., director and founder of the Center for Integrative Health and Healing in Delmar, New York. If the practitioner dashes off a prescription and ushers you out, this is not holistic treatment. An hour is generally a reasonable time to expect for an initial appointment, says Stram, but keep in mind that office policies and insurance-reimbursement rules may dictate shorter times. Of course, an inadequate doctor can spend hours with you and still not be effective; likewise, a top-notch practitioner might address all your concerns in a short amount of time. Ultimately, it’s the content of the appointment that matters most. As Weil explains, holistically minded doctors tend to ask patients about diet, exercise, and other lifestyle habits, stress level, emotional well-being, and even spiritual beliefs and practices. In other words, they assess you as a whole person, not just the symptoms that brought you in.