OUR MISSION
Heretic Health Advocates is not about losing ten pounds; it's about changing daily habits and ways of living so that they support how you want to live and feel. I do not believe in deprivation. I believe in experimenting and finding pleasure in food and movement that isn't compromised by knowing we are hurting ourselves.
Why Heretic Health? Because the problems with our health care system aren't just that it is expensive and hard to access, but that it too often does harm. I have worked with a great many people, including myself, who have been failed by a medical system that is stuck in its ways, arrogant, dismissive of the wisdom of the patient, and has divided us into our many parts and seen us only through the pathology of various specialties.
There are many excellent doctors in different fields, and if you are in an accident or get shot, our trauma centers are the best. But if you just feel bad and your symptoms could be attributed to a variety of conditions, or if you're a woman -- or a man with a disease most common in women (e.g. hypothyroidism), you are likely to end up with a psych referral and some pills that may or may not help.
A massive change is happening in medicine these days, but the relatively new fields of integrative/functional medicine are largely an out of pocket luxury that most people cannot afford. By working with you on medical literacy and self-tracking, Heretic Health can help you get the most out of your current doctors and other healthcare resources by showing you how to be an effective and knowledgable advocate for yourself.
Treatment of most healthcare conditions require that patients make lifestyle changes, but most of us need help to do it successfully. Knowledge is the beginning, but it isn't enough. In addition to helping you get what you need from your healthcare providers, Heretic Health Advocates' will provide the coaching and support, as well as information and resources you need to make the behavioral changes that are key to thriving.
We shouldn't really have to be heretics, as our philosophy draws directly from the hippocratic oath:
I will observe and keep this underwritten oath, to the utmost of my power and judgement.
With regard to healing the sick, I will devise and order for them the best diet, according to my judgement and means; and I will take care that they suffer no hurt or damage. [Food is medicine. You will make all decisions and choices and do the hard work. I will provide resources, suggestions when requested, and otherwise to the greatest of my capacity help you in your journey toward wellness.]
Nor shall any man's entreaty prevail upon me to administer poison to anyone; [I am not, nor have I ever met with, a drug rep, though I have purchased some cool drug rep paraphernalia on ebay. I am not anti-drug either, but am a big proponent of extensive knowledge of uses and side-effects.]
Whatsoever house I may enter, my visit shall be for the convenience and advantage of the patient; and I will willingly refrain from doing any injury or wrong from falsehood, and (in an especial manner) from acts of an amorous nature. [okay, basic ethics, but just so you know that I know.]
Whatever, in the course of my practice, I may see or hear (even when not invited), whatever I may happen to obtain knowledge of, if it be not proper to repeat it, I will keep sacred and secret within my own breast. [confidentially yours.]
So you see, our philosophy and approach is old and foundational, and our work is evidence-based, but we're heretics because we sometimes challenge current medical orthodoxy. And of course I would've been burned at the stake back in the day for (being a woman and) thinking we have wisdom about--and should be in control of--our own bodies.
Wellness Coaching, Patient Advocacy, and more.
