Pace Your Health
IN BRIEF
Advanced Practice
Mike Carberry
DC
Our society has transformed to meet the needs of a fast-paced world and sustain the productivity and efficiency now required of us. This culture has infiltrated many aspects of our lives, including our visits to the doctor’s office. This effect is felt even more intensely due to the increasing demand for doctors. Patients get less time with their physicians, and, as a result, never get to the root cause of their pain and are often prescribed unnecessary medications.
On average, patients spend 17 minutes with their doctors, which is not enough time to get a full diagnosis and understand what is happening with their bodies. This is where functional medicine comes in.
Functional medicine offers something that is often lacking with conventional medicine - time. This difference allows doctors to understand what is happening with their patients and get to the underlying cause of their symptoms.
On average, a patient spends one hour with a doctor who practices functional medicine, and a lot of this time is spent talking about symptoms and asking questions to
better understand the problem. Understanding the causes of a patient’s conditions allows those causes to be addressed directly.
We discussed time spent in these offices, but does functional medicine work?
According to the Institute of Functional Medicine, “Only treatments that address the right cause will have lasting benefit(s) beyond symptom suppression.”
A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) surveyed 7252 eligible patients at a functional care medicine center. This study found that after six months, 31% of patients increased their quality of life, as opposed to the 22% who sought conventional care. 1
This illustrates that people who spent more time with their doctor and worked on treating the root causes of their symptoms increased their likelihood of a better quality of life.
This is not to say medication is not necessary. There are many cases where medication is needed to cure an illness. Working to fix the root cause of a symptom might help patients reduce medication dosage, or even avoid medications that are not necessary. With offices that are patient first, such as medically integrated offices, patients will be more likely to have better outcomes and better experiences.
Mike Carberry, DC, is a Stockton University graduate and author of "The Death of American Healthcare". He speaks nationally on an array of topics ranging from business, economics, and functional medicine's role in fighting the opioid crisis. Co-founder of Advanced Medical Integration, his mission is to end the opioid crisis. AMI is offering live virtual events. To sign up visit: amidoctors.com.
References
1. WellCentric Health. “JAMA Study Shows Functional Medicine Leads Healthy Life: Reno NV ” WellCentric Health, 3 Jan. 2023, https://wellcentrichealth.com/2020/05/jama-s0idyshows-functional-medicine-leads-healthy-life/.
