I went to college, medical school, and served a residency for twelve years, and no one ever taught me how to keep my patients healthy. I was also never taught that menopause is a natural life transition, one that signals entry into a magnificent state of wisdom and power. As a nurse in training in the sixties I was taught that doctors are gods and that we are to believe in their absolute authority. Through those years and the ones that followed when I was studying to become a doctor, I came to realize how disempowering that attitude was. It did not give room for the individual to rely on his/her own knowledge, understanding, and experience.

There is a lot right within the conventional medical community, and there is a lot wrong too. One has only to look at how we doctors are trained, and that should be enough to raise eyebrows about our ultimate wisdom. During our medical and ensuing intern and resident years, we are deprived of the sleep required to adequately carry out our complex duties. And what does the medical establishment do about it? Nothing. It takes the legislature to pass a law requiring residents not to work over a certain number of hours without rest, so that the patients they serve will be protected from our mishaps, misdiagnoses, and mistreatments.

We are taught nothing about healthy foods, subsist on empty nutrition, high caffeine, and sugar diets that ultimately burn out our adrenal glands and lower our immune states. We go from those long hours in the trenches home to study and then to bed, so that we rarely exercise, relax, have fun or smell the roses. Then we are expected to be sensitive, loving and caring with our patients when we have taken no time at all to nurture ourselves. Who has all the wisdom?

I have finally seen the light and now I am shining it like a beacon to my soul sisters who need nurturing, healing and reminders that they are indeed magnificent. My belief is that our birthright is perfect health. My teachers:

• Deepak Chopra
• David Winston, and fellow herbalists
• Doctors from the American Holistic Medical Association
• Dr. Richard Schultze, ND
• And most of all, my patients
  

If you notice that there are no conventional MDs as my teachers, you are a keen observer. The board certification for OB-GYN gave me such teaching: how to safely deliver a baby and do surgery; that is a practical and necessary training.

What was glaringly absent, however, is what I am now learning from all my other precious teachers: that the paradigm, or accepted belief system, needs to be changed from that of DISEASE to that of HEALTH AND WELLNESS.

Mind you, this is not for the faint hearted: it is for the courageous few who know that to be healthy; it requires synchrony of our minds, bodies, and souls. That, in essence, means we must be responsible for what goes in our bodies, and what comes out.