This arrived along with our usual jumble of medical journals and publications, and I was so excited:
Intuition made the front cover!?!? How awesome is this!
I opened it up, not caring if it were going to be a positive review of intuition in medicine or a negative one, just so glad there were going to be addressing the role of intuition in patient care at all!
Well, that was the error in my thinking, I suppose.
It wasn’t a review of the role of intuition in patient care.
It was completely and utterly about how using ICD coding in documenting medical records leaves less space for creativity because you have to code (assign a number to) everything that happens in a medical office for review by medical insurance companies.
What the?!?! The article was all about coding and checking off boxes in the medical record, not patient care at all.
In retrospect I should have figured, considering the journal was Medical Economics after all.
But this journal cover got me thinking… shouldn’t someone out there be talking about intuition in the context of patient care?
Well, if I were writing an article about intuition for the cover of a major medical journal, here is what I want to say about how intuition complements patient care:
The thing is, medical knowledge is amazing… knowing physically what is going on inside the body helps us figure out how to help treat it and hopefully alleviate symptoms. And sometimes, when disease follows a pattern of inheritance or there are specific genetic markers for disease, we can help answer the “why” behind illness by pointing towards our DNA.
But the truth is, that among the miracles and breakthroughs and life-saving medications and surgical interventions that modern medicine provides, there are many… many… many gaps.
So much left unknown.
It became painfully aware to me in medical school, as I started to really grasp and understand for the first time how little modern medicine really knows about any single illness, that for every one process or illness that medicine has begun to understand, there are 100 more that it has no clue about.
- That we don’t have drugs that fix everything.
- That we don’t have operations that can magically cure everything.
- That we don’t have a lab test that can accurately say what is truth for you and why this is happening right now and in exactly this way, and why these are your symptoms and not these and why this happened to you and not your brother or sister.
- That out beyond the miracles of modern medicine, there are other miracles… miracles brought on by spirit and faith. That there are healings and cures that happen all the time even without medical intervention.
- And that there is a dark side, too, of modern medicine… that there are interventions that harm, that there are side effects that do not fix the problem and worse yet, cause other ones.
I began to understand and really appreciate that medicine has limitations, whereas intuition does not.
That medicine can harm, whereas spirit does not.
So I appreciate medicine for what it offers, and I honor intuition for what it adds.
I truly believe that both medical knowledge and intuitive information provide different but equally important answers to what is going on in our body. To pretend that all we are is a body that needs to be treated and a code that needs to be filled out to appease an insurance company is to not understand the beauty of life at all.
I’m convinced that if we really think all we are is a body, than medicine is likely to meet your needs well enough.
But at the point when it becomes obvious to us that there is more going on in here then just a linear biochemical process… that there is a movement of energy and a flow of spirit through us that goes well beyond how one cell reacts to another… at that point, it might not be satisfying any more to merely attempt to treat a symptom with a medication.
Intuitive information combined with medical knowledge
is more powerful than either standing alone.
Both are factual. Both are healing. Both are relevant.
Yes, I truly believe information received from intuition is absolutely as factual as information gleaned from your blood work.
Both are helpful in pulling it all together to figure out the bigger picture of why you are on the journey you are on.
From Dictionary.com:
in·tu·i·tion [in-too-ish-uhn, -tyoo-]noun
The very act of opening to, trusting in, and receiving intuitive information gains you direct access to that which is beyond understanding in modern medicine.
It adds one extra slice of understanding to the picture, fills in one more piece of the pie.
I love combining them both. I love healers that work with intuition and I love healers that work with medicine, but together… together you have access to infinite understanding.
Okay, so maybe it would be too much to think a Medical Economics would address intuition in a way that helps physicians deal with patients better… but I’m going to give it a go.
I’ve decided next month, for the entire month of August…
I’m going to take you through each chakra in your body and explain to you the energy that runs through that system.
Not just from an energetic point of view, I’m talking hands on… from a physician’s point of view… exactly how this energy is effecting your physical body and things you can do to strengthen and support each one. And I can’t wait to do it!
xoxo, Laura
PS — If you want to work privately with me to figure out both pieces of the puzzle… the medical side and the intuitive one… I’ve opened up a new “Core Peeps” program just for you!
Fabulous article, Laura. I’m looking forward to hearing your take on the chakras. You have such fresh and soulful insight. Thank you.
So I guess the answer to the question posed on the cover is “NO”! (It’s probably safe to say that when a profession believes 87,000 procedure codes are superior to 4,000 procedure codes, it is not really all that concerned with intuition.) I know absolutely that we are more than just flesh and blood, although even this body is amazing and cannot be sufficiently diagnosed, treated, and healed when approached as if it is a mathematical problem where 2+2 always equals 4. A few years ago, my husband had severe cracking and peeling on his hands and feet. The dermatologist – actually the PA, the dermatologist never examined him – threw probably a half dozen different increasing strengths of creams at the problem. The condition persisted and worsened for the next six months. Finally in desparation he consulted our fabulous family doctor (aka your husband), who suggested it could be intestinal parasites from a recent trip to Honduras. He tested for and confirmed his suspicion, and prescribed two different antibiotics plus probiotics and other holistic supplements. On the next derm trip, my husband shared this with the PA. She sniffed, “That can’t be it. What would intestinal parasites have to do with your skin?” Yeah. That was the last trip to the dermatologist. (P.S. His skin cleared up with the right INTUITIVE+MEDICAL treatment.) On the other hand, I’ve been blessed with some great clinical doctors who understand that we are more than just a body and that no matter how much they know, there is something “more.”. When I went through fertility treatments, our doctor did all the right clinical things but as he finished the procedure he looked deep into my eyes with his hand on my shoulder and said, “Well, we’ve done our part. Now – we wait for the miracle.”
Thank Cindi! I appreciate you sharing that amazing story of your hubby’s journey and also very glad my hubby could help! Thanks so much for sharing it with my readers here so they can see a real life example of how thinking outside the box helps so much, without actually negating medicine. It really is a combo of BOTH, not an either or type of thing! I really love the quote from your OB — waiting for the miracle — so beautiful! Thanks so much for your comment…. xoxoxo, Laura
Love this. I think you and Dr. Craig do such a great job of integrating both.