Welcome to Mind Body Marathon: the podcast that puts you on a path to a healthier lifestyle–whether you’re a daily runner or just finding your footing. 

On this episode, host Dr. Leo Kormanik Running Expert is joined by Dr. Alia Whitman, a medical doctor transitioning into the world of health coaching, and his wife Samua Kormanik. Our conversation centers around the transition from mainstream medicine to holistic health practices, the challenges within the healthcare system, and the importance of individualized care for overall well-being.

Alia shares her journey from being a medical director in an emergency room to embracing alternative health and wellness practices. We touch on the distinctions between "sick care" and "health care," and the shift towards concierge and cash-based medical services to provide a more holistic approach to healthcare. Our discussion also highlights the importance of addressing root causes rather than just symptoms and bridging patients into health and function.

We also talk about the misconceptions surrounding choosing natural or alternative treatments over traditional medicine and stress the significance of collaborative, multidisciplinary care. With a focus on proactive health measures and individualized patient needs, we encourage everyone to invest in their health before severe issues arise. Remember, your health is a marathon, not a sprint, and Mind Body Marathon is here to guide you along the way. Stay tuned for more enriching discussions and insights in our upcoming episodes.

Key Takeaways:

1. Holistic Healthcare Approach: The episode emphasizes the importance of bridging mainstream medicine and alternative approaches to healthcare to address root causes, focus on individual needs, and provide more comprehensive care.

2. Proactive Health Investment: Encouraging a proactive approach to health, the hosts and guest advocate for investing in well-being early on, rather than waiting for severe health issues to arise, to promote longevity and vitality.

3. Collaborative Care and Patient Engagement: Highlighting the significance of collaborative, multidisciplinary care, the episode underscores the value of finding trusted healthcare providers who understand and support individual patient goals for improved engagement and satisfaction.

4. Personalized Healthcare and Purposeful Living: The discussion on personalized healthcare stresses the importance of understanding individual priorities, values, and health span to foster purposeful, engaging lives, even in older age.

5. Challenges in Healthcare System and Patient Expectations: Addressing various challenges within the healthcare system, including financial pressures, patient expectations, and practitioner limitations, the episode underscores the need for breaking down healthcare silos and managing realistic patient expectations for better outcomes and satisfaction.

Alright. Hello, everyone. This is the Mindbody Marathon Podcast, and I'm your host, doctor Leo Kormanik. And to my left is Samua Kormanik, my beautiful wife and worked at the office here and and future health coach. And to my right is Alia Whitman who is a medical doctor, and she's our current guest for the show. And, today's topic, basically, we're just gonna be talking a lot about, you know, sort of doctor's talk. We're gonna be sort of talking about bridging the gap between, you know, medicine and alternative medicine with, like, chiropractic and also different rehab services and things like that, but also some of the issues within the actual health industry to begin with. So basically, Alia over here, she is going to start at our practice as an independent contractor doing private medical and concierge medical work.

And we're gonna kinda talk a little bit about how that started and and why that started that way. So yeah. So yeah. If you wanna just give me a little insight on on the beginnings of that.

So I think I've been your patient for what? 8 or 10 years? Yeah. So long time. You've known me for a long time. You've seen me through pregnancy, marathon running, you know, all versions of life. And we have a lot in common. We have a lot of kids. We are believers, and we have we're both a second marriage. So we kinda have a lot of those things that we share in common.

And so I've probably been talking to you about alternative medicine for a long time. Mhmm. I think it was Christmas this year that you were like, Oh, yeah. You just gotta do this.

You just gotta do it.

I was like, you're right.

Just take the lead.

What do you do currently though?

So currently, I was. I stepped down. I was a medical director for an emergency room at the Cleveland Clinic. And I love that job. I love that job still. But, you know, my side passion has always been alternative health and wellness. And what does that really mean? And, you know, a lot of what I do in the ER is sick care. And I really wanna do health care.

Yeah. So that's kind of where this all started. And it if it wasn't for you and Samua, I would not be going down this path. But I definitely feel like it's where God's called me. Yeah. And it's amazing how since December, just next thing after next thing has kind of been in my step of the next person I needed to meet, the next thing, the next rep, the next here's what people paying it forward of, here's what you need.

Yeah.

And it's just all fallen into place. It's

really exciting. Awesome.

Well, I I think the one of the interesting points that I wanna pick apart there is that you were you mentioned sick care versus health care. What do you mean by that?

Yeah. So 90% of people that come into the emergency room come in because they're afraid of that they're sick, or that something's wrong. Right? Fear drives a lot of emergency room care. But a lot of times people aren't sick in the sense that they have a labeled disease. Right? They have disease, meaning they don't feel well. They something, but everything's normal. Right? And so you go to the doctor, you go to the emergency room, and you're I have all these things. I don't feel good or I have pain or I have something.

Something has to be really wrong. And my role there in the emergency room is to say, you're not crazy. You're having symptoms. I think a lot of times as doctors, we leave that out. Yeah. We leave out the, you're not crazy. This isn't a character flaw. Right.

You know, you're not lazy. You're not, you know, a wimp.

That's true. Because on the back end, if you don't phrase that right, people get really mad and upset. This stupid doctor said this about you know, it's like they kinda take it that way.

And I think one of the biggest reflections after what I've been through postpartum and big surgeries and things is people really are suffering even if it's not their traditional, like, this is your diagnosis. Right? And so, to look at people as human and to say like, man, you really are suffering with this. The good news is you don't have to stay in the hospital. You don't need surgery. And then from a ER perspective, I'm like, good luck, you know. Yeah. Go follow-up.

Well, I mean, an interesting point there is that, the idea of a of a diagnosis. Yeah. And I think that there there are there's a book out there called The The Diagnosis Delusion is that that has that idea of being able to code and and put down on a piece of paper what does somebody have, that's a real issue because you use the word dis ease. That's the vast majority of what people are feeling on a day to day basis, and so it's like, you know, you might just generally have a headache, and it's like there doesn't have to be a diagnosis. You just have a headache, and sometimes it's just because your system's a little off. But what's the diagnosis? Like, I don't know. Like, you just you're you need to drink more water or something. Like, there's it could be that simple.

It has it doesn't have to be cancer. Right? It doesn't have to be a big aneurysm or a something. And but that also doesn't mean you're faking it. Just because it's not that diagnosis or ICD 10 code that's billable to your insurance. And so, that's the biggest part of, you know, my leap out into this side of concierge and cash based is I don't need to put a label on what you're going through to get your insurance to pay for it. I've already made all these negotiations, contracts, cash based services of this is what we need to get to the bottom of it or, you know, where I can meet you where you're at of this is how much you do or don't want to do. And this is what's important to you. Or, you're just really not going to sleep at night until you know that your organic acids are normal.

Yeah. Sure. Here's the I can meet you there. Because, again, a lot of that is still angst and suffering. Where when you're stuck in a traditional medical model, it's like, well, I the standard of care and versus, like, what your insurance will pay for in terms of, well, you don't meet this criteria for me to bill your insurance for this, So, you're going to be out of pocket which is going to be a lot of money versus looking at it on the cash pay side of negotiating outside of those systems. It makes it a lot easier to acquire tests and things that people are looking for or that just want to be healthier. Right? You're already pretty healthy. But you heal you have some disease.

You have some dysfunction or something that's really keeping you from being your best self. And so it's like that's what I'm really excited about is meeting people where they're at to be their best self.

I think, it's kinda perfect that you're coming from the ER background because many years ago now, it'd be 13, 14 years ago when I started down the path of, like, looking at alternative medicine as it's kind of really named right now. One of the presenters at this great conference that I was at, he kind of explained not explained, but he just was talking about how medicine all medicine started as ER type medicine. It was just tree triage and ER and everything else about medicine that we know today or the different, like, everyday ailments, some minor diseases, things like that. It was all handled, you know, by herbs and lifestyle and sunshine or whatever.

Right.

And so the whole concept of medicine that has originated was meant to be more like, you need stitches, you have a broken bone, like, something major has happened, and we've definitely gotten away from that.

Yeah. And and I think that comes down to people not really understanding the difference between, like, vitalism and allopathic Mhmm. Which is critical. Like, the concept of health care with, the from the allopathic perspective is that you need something from the outside to help you. You need surgery or a foreign medication to help you. So that's allopathic. That's a very distinct set of health care. Yeah.

And then vitally vital, vitalism and and and and vital, vital health care sort of is on the other end of the spectrum where you're basically you're helping your own body manage the actual illness. So you're just sort of nudging it in the right direction, but in the end, you're using natural elements. You know, like you said, like, you know, sunshine and like but also from my end of things with, like, adjustments and working on muscles, and I'm not putting anything into anybody's body. I'm just working on a muscle or working on a joint to get healing, and, you know, maybe using some acupuncture needles and things like that. But it's like, in the end, it's it's vitally different from allopathic.

Well, I love the quote, you know, that chiropractic is based on that the power that made the body can heal body. Yeah. And you just need to make sure that all the different pathways and every different, substance or whatever the body needs, you know, is there for it.

Yeah. And that's what really drove even the name of my practice, Physician Within, because I really want people to look within. Right? To look at themselves as perfectly capable, perfectly able to heal. And that, you know, yeah, you may need a few supplements. You may need medications for a little bit, but my goal isn't to have you on 500 supplements for the next 10, 20, 30 years, or eons of your life. My goal is to bridge you into your health, into your body, into your function. And we may need something to get there. Some lifestyle changes.

You know, you haven't you didn't end up where you are overnight. Right? So even for me, I didn't end up in this shape I'm in overnight. This has been the last 10 years. And so it it may take some supplements. It may take some medications to get things to where I want to be. And that's a bridge or a period of time. But the goal isn't like, oh, I'm gonna start you on this and you're gonna be on it forever. Which, somewhat, you know, when you go to traditional medicine, that's where you kind of get to.

It's like, well, now you have high blood pressure and that's a symptom. And I think that's a lot of 2 of the current medicine is treating symptoms versus root cause. And that's a lot of what I want to look at is root cause of so why do you have high blood pressure? You know, I can put you on hypertensive medications, but if you're not fixing your finances, if you're not addressing your marriage, if you're not looking at your faith and taking in your whole person, those numbers are just gonna keep going up.

Yeah.

Because I'm just putting a band aid on a symptom Yeah. Versus, like, let's look at the root cause. There's other biomarkers and other things that can help, you know, look into those things from a different angle instead of just purely, here's the numbers, here's the trend, here's the medicine. This now you now have hypertension the rest of your life. And there are some people who do have that.

But Well, and then obviously, when ends up happening for most people is you put them on one medication, and then that one creates some symptom. And then they need a medication for that symptom. And it just keeps going that domino effect.

Yeah. And you see so many people that are, you know, suffering or trying to remember how to take all these things. And once you end up on more than 1 or 2 medications I mean, even for me as a physician, I'm like,

when was I supposed to

take that? Or, oh, man. I haven't taken that the last 2 days.

Yeah.

And that's a lot of also what I ran into. Even looking for alternative medicine and looking for alternative medicine and looking for somebody to be the balance between what my traditional education was and what the alternatives are is that, you know, I'm a mom of 4 kids. I work in the ER. I work night shift. I work all these different things. I'm trying to fit in appointments with Leo or other people. And then, somebody wants me to take 60 supplements. Well, I buy all the supplements.

They're all still sitting there. You know? Of even just Okay. I buy them all. I load them all up in the, you know, pill packs and do all the stuff. And then once that's out

It takes 2 months to refill that

baby. Yeah. I know. And it's one of those and if you're managing that times for little people Yeah. You know, the priorities fall in. So I think that's the other opportunity is to really meet people where they're at. Like, where are you? What does your life look like? Can you even take supplements right now? Maybe you can't. So you said, you know, like, what other ways how can you start simple? And I think, you know, you and I have connected on that a lot of just get outside.

Yeah. You know?

Yeah. And then, you know, focus on the basics and stuff. But when a long time ago, I met this, lady. She was the, she was a consultant for, hospital directors. So she was, former, Mayo Clinic manager, and and so she basically just kinda helped hospitals run more efficiently. And she said in passing, we were talking at, USC Track Meet, and she said in passing that, you know, if you look at a cardiologist, they're paid on retention. They wanna have people come back consistently. If you look at an orthopedic surgeon, they don't want retention.

They They don't wanna see you again. They want you to replace your knee and you're done.

Same here. I don't want you to come back. Well But the same thing.

Right. And that's the goal. Right? So, like, it just depends on where you're at on the spectrum. So she would often say, like, they will often disagree with each other on how to manage cases. You know, like, for instance, orthopedic might say certain things to help a person heal quicker that the cardiologist might disagree with, and she would often say, like, you just wanna look in the middle. Mhmm. And I was like, that's such an interesting point of view because you really do just need to look at the agenda, which is, like, where are they at on the spectrum? You know, like, you know, obviously, if you are seeing a cardiac cardiologist, there's probably something pretty severe going on, but in the end, you should it should be the goal of everyone involved to not just sustain the symptoms, but to try to fix the cause of everything, and often that's not addressed.

And I think too what's harder you know, we've talked about what's broken within the health care system. You know, I this has always been a side passion of mine, but, you know, going about traditional medicine, I didn't wake up every day thinking about, like, how can I make the most money off this patient? How can I retain this patient? How can I do whatever? There's all those background factors of the health care system that are being pushed down on me. And then I'm being pushed back against by the patient and I'm, kind of, stuck in the middle in the vice. And I think a lot of, you know, physicians are kind of stuck in the vice. Right? And they they don't wait

why a lot of them are unhappy.

Right. And Or they're doing what you're doing. Right.

And they're looking for a different way. Happening. Yeah.

They really generally like, probably you got into the field because they want to help people. They want to help people have better lives, live longer, and not just live longer, but live longer and be able to actually enjoy their lives. And so they're finding that they're having to like you mentioned with insurance companies, I mean, we deal with that with our clinic all the time, and it's ridiculous because the insurance company would rather wait and pay $30,000 for somebody to get a knee surgery instead of paying for 10 visits, you know, to come and see us. That would be Yeah. A fraction of that that cost.

Exactly. And I think the other thing to realize is that when you go see a traditional physician, right, you go see them and you want a non traditional approach. You gotta find someone that has that background or has that bend. Because if you go to an Apple stand looking for oranges, and then you try to tell them why they should sell oranges, but they sell apples. Yeah. It's a fight. Right?

Lack of utility.

Right. And so, it's one of those and it's not that, you know, going to a cardiologist or going to orthopedist or going to those are bad. It's more you need to find people you trust. And if you don't trust them and you go to them with the air of mistrust, it frustrates both the patient and the doctor. And so it's one of those things of as you're looking for providers, as you're looking for and which providers is one of my least favorite terms. But as you're looking for physicians, as you're looking for someone to care for you, take all those things into account. Because that's what's gonna give you the most engagement with that person. And then the most engagement and fulfillment with you.

You know, the people that I engage with and have the most fulfillment within the ER are the patients that are kind of like minded or that I can just look at them and be like, do you need a hug? They're like, yeah. I need a hug. Yeah. Yeah.

That's awesome.

And it's one of those or, you know, to even look and say like, hey, what's your faith background? And some people are like, I have, you know, no faith background or I don't want anything to do with that. It's like, that's fine. Or they'll say, you know, I'm a believer. I believe in Christ. I've been praying this whole time. It's like, hey, can I pray with you? Mhmm. That's a totally different engagement and interaction when you find your people.

Mhmm. And

it's and it's not that you can't, you know, have a provider that's not that, but it's more along the lines of know the expectation going in.

Yeah. I mean, there's a there's a component of, like, somebody can know their stuff. Like a doctor can be, like, have this amazing resume, resume and is, CV, and it just looks looks amazing. And so you go in and you see them and you're like, wow, their bedside manner is terrible. It's like, well, that really carries a lot of weight and A lot of weight. Yeah. A lot of weight, because then the patient compliance will be substantially less, but the vast majority of people are frustrated by physicians because, like you said earlier, most physicians are sort of stuck in the middle, like, between the demands of the patient and the demands of the hierarchy that they work under. Right.

And then they're not happy. So that shows up if they plow in the room, and they're very disgruntled, and they just sort of, like, offer up this quick thing, and then they just leave the room. And then they're like, they don't even touch my knee, or they didn't even work my you know, they didn't even, like, look at me. Yeah. And I hear that all the time. But the other big thing that I think is a real issue within our current health care system is and this isn't even within medicine itself. It's even this way within rehab, is everything is so siloed.

Yes. Yeah. And you have to go to the specialist of the pinky finger. Right? Like, you can't just, like, see someone that just will look at you as a whole person and not, like, yes, your pinky finger is important and whatever's going on with it. But what about your whole body? Like, what about the inflammatory state and all the other things from your neck down?

You know? It could just be like that. You're just massively inflamed and then and that turns out how to be like, you know, something that would normally be a 2 out of 10 turns into 5 out of 10. Right? But but even within me, within my side of the rehab, it's like I'm a chiropractor, so but I treat, you know, all the joints, I treat all the muscles, and I I basically just manage, you know, like, I'm generally like a muscle docker. But I'll get everybody, like, oh, do you work on knees too? Because they just think I work on backs. Right.

It's like,

I actually probably work more on knees than I do on

back. Right.

It's like funny because we'll have patients that sometimes I'll get phone calls where patients like, well, I came in like 3 years ago and I had this shoulder thing and, you know, doctor Leo fixed me and doctor Mann, I have had to come in. It's like, but now my angle's bugging me. Can I come in for that too? It's like they're so used to things being so siloed

Yeah.

That even if you have worked on something outside of their back, their expectation is still like, oh, he must just be the back and shoulder doctor. He can't possibly be the ankle doctor.

Yeah. Same. And I get the same thing, you know, from the ER perspective of, you know, oh, can you do this? Can you do that? Of those things. Or people expect I can do everything. They're, you know, kinda like Grey's Anatomy

Yeah.

Where they're like, oh, or house, you know. Well, you're gonna see me. Now you're gonna do my endoscopy. I'm like, no. I'm not. I could. I have a TV show. Right.

Yeah. Like, I'm not an all in one service. There's a lot of thing, you know, I joke a lot that I'm, you know, the jack of all, master of none. But there are certain things that we definitely are the master of from an emergency perspective. But I think that's also, like you said, the benefit of coming from an ER background into what I'm going into. Is that I very much am aware of the emergent things and or a lot of fears that people have of emergent things. And how to say like, no. That's not what's going on.

Or you know, I really can't tell you that's not what's going on. You do need to go to the emergency room. And so that's one of the features I'm really looking forward to offering patients is to keep me out of the ER service of can you just talk me off a ledge? Or do I really need to go? Yeah. Because there are people that you yeah. You do really need to go.

So our style of practice is where we wanna wanna go into the proactive, healthy individual that that people just wanna sit sort of, like, take health in into their own hands. It's like that type of person, they are hedging their bets. Mhmm. They don't wanna lose all of it. Right? They don't wanna get to the point where they have to have a hip replacement or they have to have a heart, you know, or they have a heart attack or something severe. So they're literally, you know, investing time and energy when they're healthy or a little diseased when there are warning signs, and then to prevent that big thing down the road. Yeah.

I think part of the problem now, and, unfortunately, we have seen this now creep up in all aspects of the culture, is that everything has to be like a box or a camp or, you know, everybody has to pick their hill to die on. And as opposed to being like, there's a time and place for everything, you know, regardless of whatever your beliefs are on different things on all topics, there's always a time and place for something. And so a lot of people think that, well, if I'm gonna go naturopathically or if I'm gonna see a chiropractor, then that must mean that I'm the type of person that just doesn't believe in medicine, whatever that means, because it's not like medicine is something to it doesn't exist that you have to have faith in. As opposed to thinking of, like, what you just touched upon, like, let's hedge our bets. Let's, you know, be natural as much as we can and make these smart decisions and look for these all body encompassing treatment options and the concierge side of things, you know, not the one size fits all, which currently is a lot of the, stuff going on out there. But, you know, if something happens that you need to go to the ER or you need to go, you know, get some medication to kind of like you mentioned early on, like, let's put the fire out and then go out and see why did the fire start. And for whatever reason, people don't think that way. They think it's like 1 or the other versus like, hey.

Let's do this along the way. And, you know, if you break a bone, go to the ER, go see a doctor.

Yeah. Like, I had this case today that was very similar to the situation where the individual was not doing good. They were in a lot of pain, and we had seen them a couple of times, and I advised them to get an image and start pursuing other measures to help with our treatment. We'll still continue treatment, but I think that we need to pursue these other measures. And they were like, I'm just not gonna do that. I'm just gonna Yeah. Continue treatment with you, and it'll be fine.

Hope for the best. Yeah.

And I'm like, I mean, you know

I mean,

like, you're amazing at what you do. And and whenever patients call, I always kinda say this to them. I'm like, if it's not broken or a full tear, doctor Leo can fix you. But if it's broken or a full tear, then you're gonna need something else. I mean, you're not a magician. Matter.

Yeah. And I think that's one of the things that's most exciting for me right now in this kind of phase of transition that I'm in is I get to learn from so many people. And I spent a week out in Arizona last week learning from a naturopath and learning from they have a naturopath, an MD, and, PT. They have medical fitness. So, how they run their clinic. Mhmm. Just in terms of how everybody's really collaborating versus staying in their silo. Yeah.

And or, you know, discrediting what the other person does to increase their own value. And nobody in that practice is giving like a, oh, you have to vaccinate or you don't have to vaccinate your kids. They're more looking at, hey, this is what's important to you. This is what you need to know about vaccines. This is what you don't wanna know. Here's all the in between. Now, you go make a good decision for you. Yeah.

I'm not here to vote. I'm here to be your advocate and give you all the information and let you really decide. And I think it was just so cool to be in that practice and see all the ways they're really helping people. Even like you said, from myofascial pain, to looking at things of how else can you get better? What is really driving your pain?

Yeah. If you went and you, right now, could walk into the treatment room at the Olympic Training Center or the treatment room at, you know, like, your local professional football team, like, you know, the Browns or the Steelers or whatever, and you walked into the treatment room, you would not really be be able to tell who has what degree. Correct. And you there's our athletic trainers working alongside PTs, working alongside chiropractors, and then, you know, the the orthopedic will come around, and it's like, and massage therapists are there, and it's like everybody's just genuinely working together to get that athlete better. And that team approach is absolutely lost to the general public.

Yeah. And I think the other thing to think about, you know, from my standpoint, your standpoint, you know, I was a college athlete. You were a college athlete. You know, you did a lot in marathon training, and Olympics, and all those things. I never made it to that level. But even now, like just training for life. Right? That you there are Even if you're not a multimillion dollar athlete, you still deserve that care of having a multidisciplinary people care for you to really get the best outcome. And I think that's what the biggest people I'm excited with working with is, you know, moms, dads, kids, anybody who just says, I I wanna be perform in my life.

Not just out there on Sunday afternoon. You know?

I know because it's like right now I'm dealing with my grandma in Brazil who is really, really taken down by Alzheimer's. And her body is great. You know, her body is strong. She physically can do things, and it just breaks my heart because she's had a decently difficult life, you know, struggled through through lots of different things and always worked and all these different challenges. And here, she's finally old enough and has the resources that she's built up, to be able to kind of enjoy her later years, and yet she's not able to.

Right.

And it just breaks my heart because it's like she spent all these years of her life, you know, struggling and fighting and working hard to build all this up with the mindset of, oh, you know, when I retire. And now she's retired, and she used to talk about all this travel she wanted to do. And when I was there, like, I couldn't get her to walk outside with me to the park 5 minutes down the road from her from her house. And so it's like what like, you just mentioned, like, the marathon of life, you know, making sure that it's not just about your performance. It's not just about your body, you know, being able to perform at high levels, but the longevity of your body being able to perform so that you can just enjoy a walk to the

park. Park. Well, that's the hence the name of the the podcast, Mind Body Marathon. Right?

Right.

We were looking at it obviously through the lens of

That wasn't even intentional.

Right? Yeah. I know that. Yeah.

But I think people need to look at the difference between lifespan and health span. Right. Right? You can outlive your health span and that gap between when your health span dies.

Yeah.

And when your lifespan continues to your last breath, though that gap is where people suffer.

Right.

Right. That's where people are in nursing homes or all the things that you hear people say of, I never wanna do that. Right? And so then you're like, okay. You never want to do that. Well, I'm not going to be able to make you live forever. But what if I could expand your health span so that you can do what the Lord has for you up until your last breath?

Yeah. They they so there there are a couple of hunter gatherer tribes around the the world that still exist, and and I know specifically with Dan Lieberman's work, the Hadza tribe, one of the things he would say about them, and this is in just outside of Kenya and Africa, they he would say that they their health span was right all the way up to their lifespan. And if you follow the arc of their life, they're very active from when they're born to when they're in their twenties and then they have kids. When they have kids, they're least active. And then once the kids are old enough, then they're actually most active. So they're so the grandparents that their roles from, like, the forties to the seventies, they're actually some of the most active individuals in the hunter gatherer camp. And it's it's such a foreign concept, where because now they don't have kids to rear, so what they're doing is they're going out and hunting hunting and gathering, and at a very high level, and then they live right up to, like, 70, and then they just die quick. And it's like but, like, they were actively committing to their camp and their community right up until that point.

Yeah. And I think that is another huge aspect that's missed in healthcare is what's your purpose? What are you doing? What what does God have for you? Yeah. What drives you? What drives you? What's your why? You know, we talk about that, you know, in working in a hierarchy and working in these things. You know, you have these big cultures and organizations. Right? That, high performing teams, high performing culture of business, you know, all those things. But that's on the, you know, micros or macroscopic level when you think about it. But you also need to bring that down to the microscopic level in terms of for you personally, that's also gonna be what drives your wellness. And the idea of, you know, I'm gonna do till x day and then I'm gonna retire and do nothing really isn't good for your health and isn't good for your mind or body.

Even if you go, I'm gonna retire and play golf. Right. Yeah. Or I'm gonna retire and play pickleball now. Right? Yeah. Which is cool, and you should definitely do that. And I am jealous, because I would love to be playing games all the time too.

Same.

However, that changes your your purpose.

Yeah. What else?

And you're not adding value.

Right.

So that's that's a big issue.

I think that too, like, even just talking with my parents about, you know, my parents are in their mid to late seventies and they're still working and still doing tons of things because they know when they watch their parents, once their parents stopped engaging in the community and or involved reading what's going on in the world and all that stuff, You lose your own sense of value or the way that you can give back. And I think, you know, to your point of they're the busiest and they give the most back to the community once they've gotten through that child rearing age. And I think, you know, when people used to say it takes a village and now they're like, yeah, where's the village? It's kind of true. Like, where is the village? But that was the village that people experienced in the past. And I think, you know, as health care, as, you know, a community that we can sort of give back to patients and people and hopefully inspire that for the next generation so that our kids really do have that village.

I think that one of the best things that you will be bringing to the table is, you know, that concierge idea, the concept of it's not cookie cutter. It's not one size fits all, and and marrying in, like you mentioned, like, what does what is what is valuable to you? What is important to you? You? You know, having Naomi, who's a child with autism and she developed autism, you know, after the fact, she was not born that way and and wasn't until about 18 months or so. And people ask me all the time in my opinion on vaccines. You know, do you get them? Do you not get them? And what do you do? And and at the end of the day, it's like, wherever you fall on the camp of anything, there's gonna be pros and cons. And Yeah. And I would tell people, like, either my opinion of stuff that I've learned, or direct them to, like, here's some resources that you should go, you know, read it read up on. But, like, at the end of the day, like, you have to make the decision that you know you can live with Yeah. Wherever the cards may fall.

Because you never know which way they're gonna fall. Whichever camp you decide to be on on anything. And so having somebody like you that you can come in and discuss, like, here's what I'm feeling right now. Here's what's valuable to me. Here's my priorities. Here's where I wanted my life to go in 10 years. Here's what I hope to be doing. And like you mentioned and here today, this is the viable amount of time that I have to dedicate to this.

I cannot be making flowcharts of when I'm making taking my medications or things like that, and combining all of that for that specific person

Yeah.

And how valuable that will be to your patients.

Yeah. And I'm really looking forward to to being like, I'm not a good fit for you. I could take your money. I you could pay me a lot of money and I'm just not it. I'm not the one for you. I'm not your people. I don't see things the way you see it. And I think that's a huge part of finding somebody to care for you is who is your person? Who do you fit with? Who understands you? And, you know, like you said, to your point, can meet you in all those things.

Yeah. I mean, so this is I mean, we could continue this for a very long time, and we will we will definitely have some some future episodes with regards to this concept and dissecting some of this stuff. So, you know, anybody who's listening to this, please respond with some comments and some topics you wanna hear from from us, some some pieces you want us to sort of flesh out, with regards to, any aspect of health care, whether it be injury rehab, to some of the metabolic stuff, to some hormones, you know, just some of the trending topics right now, like Ozempic and all that sort of stuff. Like, definitely wanna we wanna flesh that out and let let everybody know what our opinion on that on that is. But but for now, I think we wanna sort of close the episode with kind of a final quick sprint. Right? So a last little topic that we can, or tidbit that we can an actionable item that we we can give people to help them out with their their daily habits. So we'll start with you, Alia. So do you have any quick, quick ideas for people?

Quick ideas are start simple. If you are not feeling well or you wanna perform better, then 2 things you can focus on are sleep and how much water you drink. That if you want to do things differently, you have to do things differently. And so look at what you're doing, why you're doing it, and protect your sleep, drink enough water.

I love it. What about you?

So adding to what Alia said, I would say, 1, just the belief that your body can and will take care of you in itself, and so just trust that. The power is there already. And then adding to what you said, starting simple, you know, just without overwhelming yourself, without thinking about all the different vitamins or things you could be doing, get outside for at least 15 minutes a day and do something. Even in Ohio weather, we can probably do that 90% of the time. And, you know, look at eating fresh foods, just stuff that comes out of your fridge and not out of boxes, And make an appointment with Aaliyah.

Sounds good. Yeah. And and so you sort of so stole my thunder there. My my idea was gonna be, you know, when you're eating

I'm a good student.

Nice segue. When when when you're eating, you know, make sure to eat things that aren't necessarily ingredients driven. So, you know, there is there an ingredient listed in broccoli or an apple? So, you know, focus on simple items, focus on, natural healthy foods, and if you can, buy organic. That's vitally important. We will have definitely a whole episode on that and talking about glyphosate and, you know, its issue with glycine in the body and just kind of fleshing that out, we will definitely cover that topic. But but again, I like what everybody's saying, so start with the basics. Right? Good healthy sleep, making sure you're good there, staying hydrated, and then paying attention to the basics with regards to sun and natural food.

And I think too, we get so caught up in the restriction of things. Yeah. Instead of I think part of, you know, what we're used to in medicine is prescription. And so what I would add is I would prescribe for you to eat things that nourish your body. Instead of looking at, I can't eat this or I shouldn't do that. To look at, this is going to make me feel great today. This is going to nourish me. This is what's good for me.

Because then you get that positive joy, endorphins, all those things. So, yeah, definitely.

I love that. Having the prescription of that, my doctor said I need to do this. Yes. Genius, actually. All right. So that was, that's it for this week and, be sure to subscribe to our page and give us some comments on what you like, what you didn't like. What do you want to hear from us? And, again, the next time. Thank you.