A new clinic in Colville blends the best from modern medicine and
alternative treatments
Source: Cole Cosgrove, The Inlander, Spokane, WA 7-21-99
When the traditional pills-and-surgery style of Western Medicine
doesn't work, what can you do? That's a question that has always faced
patients with terminal illness or chronic symptoms. And into that void
has grown an entire world of alternative treatments that give hope to
the hopeless. For the past year, Inland Northwesterners have had just
such an alternative in Colville's Healing Arts Center, where all kinds
of patients (including those with chronic illnesses) are treated through
a variety of therapies they may have never been introduced to through
their own doctor.
"Western medicine is very good at taking care of emergencies and
life-threatening situations, but not chronic conditions", says Long
Hatfield, M.D., co-founder of the Healing Arts Center. "It's good
at fixing what's broken but now why it's broken, whether it's allergies,
diabetes, or high blood pressure".
A year ago, Hatfield and his partner George Carnie opened the center
next to a farm with views of the nearby mountains. They wanted a place
where a variety of alternative health care practitioners could work
together, similar to a medical practice where a variety of doctors share
expenses, administrative staff, and office space. Hatfield and Carnie's
guiding principle was that their associates share their vision of what
health care could be. The Center has grown to 31 staff members, up from
16 a year ago. And they are treating 80 patients a day, four times the
number from when they started.
Carnie says the Center has been successful because it offers the best
of Western medicine, Eastern medicine, alternative medicine, and the
latest in technology to best assess and help patients. "One patient
had fibromyalgia, that's chronic pain, and got diagnosed at the Mayo
Clinic", says Carnie, chief executive officer. "The person
asked what could be done, and the Mayo Clinic said there is nothing they
could do. They were honest - there was nothing Western medicine could do
to treat them. The patient came here, and we were able to get positive
results".
The Center is part of a trend of blending traditional and modern
medicine that is starting to appear across the United States. "I
see us doing what other people are only talking about", says Randy
Sandaine, a naturopathic doctor at the Center. "We stand as a model
that a Center like this is working".
Disciplines represented on the staff at the Center include
naturopathic, homeopathic, osteopathic, herbal therapy, Qi Gong,
traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, Chinese herbs, integrated
massage therapy, neuromuscular therapy, marriage and family therapy, as
well as electroacupuncture, photo-light therapy, and EEG biofeedback.
And the two M.D.s and two R.N.s bring the best of modern medicine to the
mix.
A similar clinic, The Medicine Tree, has been in operation in St.
Ignatius, Montana, since 1995. "I think there's a need for all
these approaches",
time; I was tired". Out of options, Carnie's primary care physician,
Hatfield, who had just been getting into alternative medicine, suggested
Carnie try Sandaine, then a Colville-based naturopathic physician
working on his own. "Once you get outside the conventional Western
model", Hatfield says, "it opens potential creative
solutions".
One of those creative solutions Sandaine treated Carnie with is the
Nambudripad Allergy Elimination Technique which combines techniques from
kinesiology, chiropractic, and Asian medicine to block the body from
treating the allergen as if it were harmful. The treatment seems to have
worked. Carnie says he hasn't been sick since. "It's been three
years now, and I've never felt anything but good," Carnie says.
Excited by his success, Carnie wanted to share the possibilities with
other people, and the idea for the Healing Arts Center was born. Carnie,
who had just retired after 18 years as an elementary school principal in
Colville, brought his administrative skills together with Hatfield's 23
years as a family doctor, and Sandaine's naturopathic training, to form
the integrated clinic.
The Healing Arts Center uses a unique system to diagnose medical
problems and settle on a course of treatment. After a patient comes in,
all the doctors, providers, and therapists will meet together , go over
the patient's evaluation, and everyone will brainstorm treatment
options. Then the patient is given options for a course of treatment.
"Here we have all this brainpower, we get all their ideas, then
come up with a complete treatment plan that incorporates the mind, body,
and spirit," says Carnie.
That complete treatment plan, Carnie says, often brings successful
results when traditional medicine can't. Traditional doctors usually
treat patients with drugs, Carnie says, which only gets to the symptoms,
not to the root of the problem.
And the Center is also unique in that it doesn't just use alternative
treatments. "This is an unusual place," says Fran Boring, a
biofeedback technician at the Center, "because a lot of
naturopathic clinics discourage modern technology."
In addition to the style of medicine, the entire experience is
enhanced by the Center's cutting-edge treatment facility. Carnie and
Hatfield started by visiting alternative medicine centers across the
United States, finding out what worked. The result is a
10,000-square-foot, feng shui designed, non-toxic building. Non-toxic,
Carnie explains, means no glues or varnishes, along with special paint,
carpet, and insulation that will not affect extrasensitive people.
Walking inside the building feels like entering a comfortable home,
not a doctor's office. The waiting room features vaulted ceilings,
skylights, a fireplace, and bookshelves. Soft music plays in the
background.
Even the selection of Colvile as home base seems to create an
out-of-the-way place to heal. Carnie says it was an easy decision since
they all lived in Colville but adds that patients make the trip from as
far away as California. And they have lots of patients who make the
90-minute drive from Spokane. "The healing starts just getting out
of their car," says Carnie.
Despite success stories related by practitioners and patients at the
Healing Arts Center, there are skeptics of alternative medicine.
"With the increased interest in alternative medicine, we see a
reversion to irrational approaches to medical practice, even while
scientific medicine is making some of its most dramatic advances,"
wrote Marcia Angell, M.D., and Herome Kassirer, M.D., in a 1998 New
England Journal of Medicine editorial. "It is probably in part a
matter of disillusionment with the often hurried and impersonal care
delivered by conventional physicians as well as the harsh treatments
that may be necessary for life-threatening diseases."
Many alternative treatments, whether popular with patients or not,
are not scientifically proven. Some researchers have even assigned a
placebo effect as the reason for some alternative therapies' success -
if people participate in something they believe will work, they may feel
better as a psychological result. That may be part of the reason that
alternative health care has become a billion-dollar-plus industry in the
United States. Still, critics warn that people may be buying more snake
oil than salvation.
"There cannot be two kinds of medicine - conventional and
alternative," Angell and Kassirer wrote. "There is only
medicine that has been adequately tested and medicine that has not,
medicine that works and medicine that may or may not work."
The practitioners at the Center understand that skepticism and
believe a person should be cautious but open to alternative ideas.
"There aren't good guidelines," Hatfield says. "A person
should carry a healthy skepticism. If someone says, 'You have to do it
my way,' whether that's with alternative or Western medicine, that's not
good. The person offering treatment should be open to other options
besides their own."
Sandaine says to look for someone trained at an accredited school and
who is currently licensed: "Talk to people who have seen the doctor
before, people you know and trust. Word of mouth is the best
recommendation."
The fact that patients are listened to, not just looked at, is one of
the reasons the Healing Arts Center has been successful, biofeedback
practitioner Boring says. "Practitioners spend an hour with the
patient," Boring says. Not just five to ten minutes. Health care is
going to have to look like this 20 years from now.
Source: Cole Cosgrove, The Inlander, Spokane, WA 7-21-99