“I was born and raised in South Africa under apartheid. Apartheid literally means “separate.” Black South Africans did not have the same rights as whites and were forced to live in separate areas assigned to them by the government. My parents, who were political activists and fought the apartheid system, instilled in me a sense of social justice and the importance of questioning the status quo. This philosophy, in many ways, is the theme of my story as a physician.

In 1979, after finishing medical school at the University of Witwaterstrand in Johannesburg, the preeminent university in South Africa, I began my medical internship at a time when South African hospitals were still segregated by race. I chose to work at Baragwaneth Hospital, a facility for black people located in Soweto, one of the government-designated “Black Only” cities on the outskirts of Johannesburg. Many black South Africans chose to live there rather than on a “homeland,” a designated area where the government forced different tribal groups to live. Although there was a small black middle class, the majority of the residents of Soweto had come to the city to find blue-collar jobs in factories and the gold mines, or as domestic workers. Life in Soweto was harsh. It was crowded, alienating, difficult, and violent.

Baragwaneth Hospital is the largest and busiest hospital on the continent of Africa. There I had the opportunity to encounter, learn about, and treat a wide variety of diseases. At the hospital we worked as a team, which was the best way to ensure that no patient was left unattended. We had so many patients that there were hardly enough beds and sometimes patients had to sleep on the floor. Every day we were confronted with the symptoms of life and poverty in the inner city: knife wounds, alcoholism, and newly acquired Western diseases like diabetes, hypertension, and stroke, the result of poor diet and stress. For the indigenous black population, these problems were the by-product of urbanization.

It was at Baragweneth Hospital that I had my first exposure to the possibilities of non-Western medical traditions. Sometimes, when we doctors found ourselves unable to help a patient using conventional methods, the patient’s family would call in a sagoma, a traditional African healer. I didn’t pay much attention to their activities because I was so busy doing my job and they respectfully did not interfere with the functioning of the hospital wards. However, more than once I noticed that a patient got better after the sangoma’s visit.

Following my internship, as part of my compulsory military service I elected to work in Kwandbele, one of the homelands, which had a central hospital. The fully staffed Philadelphia Mission Hospital included six doctors, along with clinics in many of the surrounding villages that were run by nurses. At these clinics, the nurses handled such day-to-day problems as general aches and pains, childhood illnesses, acute infections, and delivering babies. They would radio for an ambulance only in case of emergency: complicated deliveries requiring caesarian section, appendicitis, and so forth. Depending on how far each clinic was from the hospital, it could take from half an hour up to two hours to transport a patient. The roads were awful, none of the locals had cars, and the buses were unreliable. Every week, one of the doctors would travel to the clinics in order to see the patients that the nurses felt needed their attention.

1. GOOD MEDICINE

I practice what I call Good Medicine, combining the best of modern contemporary medicine with the best of alternative and complementary medicines. It blends the knowledge we’ve gained from science with wisdom of ancient healing traditions. I use and recommend conventional medicine (drugs and surgery) when appropriate, but I also embrace complementary approaches, e.g. Chinese medicine, Nutritional medicine, Herbal medicine, bodywork, yoga and meditation, etc. I may use different therapeutic techniques, but I always take into account the patient’s belief systems, attitudes, feelings, social relationships and environment. I also look at their patterns of eating, working, resting, sleeping and exercising and never lose sight of the body’s ability to heal itself.

2. DOCTOR AS TEACHER

A large part of what I do is teach patients how to get well and stay healthy, which is true Preventive medicine. I find both education and encouragement are of paramount importance in promoting self care and positive lifestyle changes, including a healthy diet and keeping the body active and moving, which are essential to health. In addition, teaching patients ways to support health by using herbs and nutrients which boost the immune system or improve functioning of the organs, helps prevent disease too.

3. DOCTOR AS PARTNER

I see myself as a partner in my patient’s health journey. Encouraging patients to be autonomous and to take responsibility for their own health, is preferable to imposing my beliefs, desires and decisions on them.

4. DOCTOR AS GARDENER

My Chinese Medicine teachers, Harriet Beinfield and Efram Korngold, taught me to see the body as a garden and myself, the doctor, as a gardener. When a plant is sick or not doing well, it is crucial to look at the environment within which the plant is growing – what is the quality of the soil, is it getting enough nutrients, does it have enough sun, water, etc, which is exactly how I see the body. The new Functional Medicine model looks at dis-ease and dysfunction the same way.

Look at the tree image attached

5. IDENTIFYING SUB-OPTIMAL FUNCTIONING

There is a continuum between optimal health and disease where different grades of sub-optimal functioning can appear. For example, before your car’s brake pads give in and your brakes fail, years of wear and tear have been slowly eroding the pads. The same thing happens with our health. Before we develop a disease, or even symptoms, there have usually been months or years of progressive “wearing down” of optimal functioning. Our body has a large reserve, which it uses to maintain health, but it can be depleted or worn down over time. Only then do we experience disease, it doesn’t just happen out of the blue. My role as a physician is to help improve and restore the body’s reserves and to help it become more resilient. To use the car analogy, building the body’s reserve is like put more layers of padding on the brake pads.

6. REDEFINING HEALTH

I believe that health is more than the absence of disease. It is a total state of physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and social well-being.

7. EVERYONE IS UNIQUE

We all have unique physical features and personalities and we are unique internally and biochemically. Each of us is distinctive in how we each digest foods, which particular foods nourish us, which harm us and how our livers break down drugs or detoxify pollutants. Our systems are as unique to each person as their fingerprints. This explains why some people react badly to certain foods, or why some people get side effects from drugs and others don’t.

8. MIND BODY AND EMOTIONS ALL CONNECTED

There is no separation of mind, body and emotions. Thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and belief systems obviously affect your physical well being, as does dysfunction in the body affect your mind and emotions. In addition, all the body parts are connected and influence each other.

9. THE BODY HAS AN INNATE CAPACITY TO HEAL ITSELF

Although we take it for granted, the body is engaged in self-healing all the time. When you cut yourself, your body heals the cut. When you get a cold, the body’s immune system usually fights it off after a few days. Your body is continually healing and repairing itself. The 2 questions I ask myself with any patient are what factors need to be removed for healing to occur and what needs are not being met preventing self healing.