My earliest exposures to medicine can best be described as two opposing forces, or influences, colliding. My mother was a pharmacist, a great scientific mind and a staunch supporter of raising her children in a world of facts and figures. My grandmother, her mother, was a practitioner of voodoo, and shook her head at taking something from a pill bottle when a bite of hot pepper or a vigorous back massage would do. Since my grandmother lived in the same house as us growing up, my childhood healthcare could safely be described as a battle between the forces of science and traditional Creole wisdom.
When I was young, I didn’t fully understand the complexity of my mother’s science or the rationale rooted in my grandmother’s practices. But as I grew older and began to excel in school, I developed a special interest in science. It was exciting to figure out how things worked and what the world was made of. My mother, of course, encouraged me towards chemistry and biology, hoping I would follow in her footsteps. Thinking I might follow her, I pursued a degree in chemistry. I particularly enjoyed the pace of lab work, so I upgraded from the high school science club to a lab assistant position. As I worked and participated in research at the college, I was swayed back to hands-on investigation over concocting treatments. I enjoyed working with my hands in the lab, but I discovered I enjoyed patient interaction when I shadowed my mother at her clinic. It was more intriguing to speak with patients and get to know them than it was to learn to dispense pills.
Even while science and medicine became a focus in my life, I hadn’t forgotten my grandmother and her different approach to health. I would still sometimes dab my temples with peppermint oil instead of taking an ibuprofen for a faster, cooling relief devoid of the side effects I suffered. On holy days, I would join my grandmother in her spiritual refreshment, which involved meditation and self-reflection that I found mentally beneficial as a busy college student. And the experiences encouraged me to explore a way to combine my love of science with my deep-rooted appreciation for holistic medicine. I had already veered away from pharmacy, but I wanted to work with patients as my mother did every day, caring for them and providing her expertise. I wanted something in between the hard science and the homegrown healing perspectives. Both had an impact on my desire to heal and serve others, but neither alone was just the right fit.
So, I began researching osteopathic medicine. I had encountered osteopathic philosophy while working on a research project, and the principles stayed with me. One of my research supervisors was a doctor of osteopathy, and I asked her for recommendations. She advised me to volunteer at an osteopathic clinic a few towns over, which I did. It was by far the best experience for me, as it was exactly the mix of early influences in health and healing I needed. The practice was focused on patients, on gathering histories and consulting scientific knowledge to determine and diagnose. But there was an appreciation for the treatment of mental health through exercise, for spiritual well-being through meditation. The patients I saw at the clinic were seeking more than just typical treatments for the common cold or minor injuries. They were seeking to improve their overall health. This long-term approach meant I could spend more time with the patients and do more to aid them than prescribe medication.
Here I discovered my thought that medicine had to be one or the other, that it was a spectrum, was wrong. My experiences with osteopathic medicine have allowed me to be more involved with patients and their health, and to use my love of science to find answers to problems. My early experiences with healing were not a battle at all but have encouraged me to find balance and keep an open mind. For me, osteopathy was a natural choice. Medicine is a holistic practice, and osteopathy fused together the two sides: the science and the spiritual.
Like our blog? Write for us! >>
Have a question? Ask our admissions experts below and we'll answer!
Comments