The broad span of medical practice has, placed firmly at either end, two distinctly different philosophical approaches. We might call them the gardener and the mechanic. These two types of doctors are not defined by their schooling, licenses or their gender. Mechanics have a more technical way of practicing, the gardeners a m ore nurturing, sometimes intuitive approach. And this may be true even within different medical disciplines. There are undoubtedly naturopathic physicians who look at people like machines and treat diseases like auto repairmen fixing your car. Likewise there might be surgeons who cultivate each patient like a prize rose and smile with delight when they see each person blossom. Ultimately these two styles might reflect the polarities of medicine and healing as the two snakes that wrap themselves around the caduceus.
     The doctor as mechanic prescribes a drug for your disease, rather than for you as a whole person, and tells you, or simply implies, that you may be taking this medicine for the rest of your life. Quite often, working with a mechanical doctor is like going to the body shop after an accident. Your gallbladder doesn't work so they take it out; your low back keeps hurting so they fuse the vertebrae; your joint doesn't heal well after repeated injuries so they replace it with a plastic joint. These treatments are presented as solutions to long-term problems, even if the underlying question of "why?" is never even asked, let alone answered. In this mode a physician will emphasize medicine as the manipulation of information and techniques to treat disease.
     In contrast, the physician who practices the art of medicine like a gardener will propose a treatment plan based on your evolving healing process and designed to move deeper with time, shifting the focus from symptom to pattern to cause. The gardener prepares the soil, plants seeds, weeds and tills regularly, and only after much fresh air, sunshine, water and nourishing earth, does the garden become ripe. In this mode a physician will emphasize healing as the caring for a person who is suffering with an illness.
     Ultimately, the two types of doctors use medicines for different reasons and relate to their patients in different ways. As a patient you can undoubtedly appreciate the difference between these two styles. Both are useful at the appropriate time and for the appropriate condition.
     Many people with chronic conditions such as asthma, ulcers or allergies are simply bound to their drugs for an indefinite period with no hope of ever being free from medication. In technical terms, the treatment they are receiving is palliative or suppressive, rather than curative.

• A palliative treatment is one that relieves symptoms as long as the medication is continued but is not intended to address the underlying cause of the symptoms.
  
• A suppressive treatment is one that blocks the appearance of symptoms, even if they are part of the body's own immune response.

Suppression provides no hope in the way of cure and quite often provides only a temporary relief until new symptoms appear to express the underlying distress or imbalance that has gone unresolved.
     Either way the true sign of a medicine's effect can be seen when you try to get off of it. If your symptoms return, it was palliative. If your energy level and mental clarity decline or new, possibly deeper, problems appear after a while, then the treatment was probably suppressive.
     In the world of politics, an analogy might be where a group of landless peasants protest their poverty and oppression. The palliative approach might be to put them on welfare, which destroys their dignity and renders them dependent. The suppressive approach would be to respond with violence and imprisonment. In either case, the root problems of injustice, suffering and despair have not been adequately addressed and a new crop of protesting peasants will appear again to voice their grievances before long.
     Anyone who has taken several courses of antibiotics for recurrent ear, sinus or bladder infections will know what this means in real life, as will someone who has developed asthma after having their eczema suppressed. The "solution" of one problem is often the beginning of another. At other times the treatment can feel worse than the disease. While the problem may have been addressed, it often feels as if the person with the problem has been forgotten.
     The gardener studies the soil of the patient to assess their weaknesses, strengths and tendencies. Just as in your yard, the green-fingered physician wants to touch the soil, learn about its past, and analyze its content. Then he will determine the sensitivities of your bodily garden and lay out a plan geared toward the readiness and pacing of your life. The gardener can be problem-oriented when necessary and appropriate, but his therapy is primarily directed toward health, growth and refinement. He uses his experience and training, along with an ever-growing skill at observation, to elicit patterns of imbalance and dysfunction before disease develops. Whether looking at your posture or facial expression, feeling your pulse, back or abdomen, or listening to the quality of your voice and choice of your words, the gardener understands that the patient always knows more about their condition than any doctor ever can.
     While a good mechanic may keep you on the road, you flourish when your gardener takes good care of you. Illness is prevented; your energy is abundant and your mind is clear. In this state of wellness you achieve personal growth, attain wisdom, and cultivate understanding. The gardener physician smiles when his patients come not out of need or dependence but rather to maintain wellness and realize life's potential. He knows that living life with joy and freedom is the goal of medicine and that getting treated is just a means. Even more the gardener takes pride in his crop of patients, not in a boastful self-congratulating way, but in a way that honors and celebrates the healing power and divine grace in each person. Nature heals, the doctor can only assist.
     The mere existence of a treatment plan might distinguish the gardener from the mechanic. This largely derives from the fact that while a mechanic can fix a broken part in one visit, the healing of a chronic problem usually involves an extended process. Like flowers and vegetables, but unlike cars, people are dynamic, growing and responsive to changes in their environment. Quite often you can feel in poor health even though no part is broken and lab tests reveal no overt malfunctioning. How unusual is it to ask a doctor what is wrong with you and have him or her reply that everything appears normal? Too often it seems that the external signs are given more credence than our feelings and intuitions. Yet most modern doctors have no tools for discerning the subtle patterns that reveal themselves long before disease has fully formed.
     The first difference you will notice when you begin working with a physician who thinks like a gardener is the time the doctor devotes to getting to know everything they can about you, your body and your personal history. Next it becomes obvious that this physician sees your body and your symptoms as an intricate set of balances and subtle relationships. The mention of one problem triggers questions about other unmentioned and seemingly unrelated symptoms. Gradually you see that this doctor is piecing together a living picture of your life and that your intuition was correct in sensing that your various complaints and stresses were just different intersections in a single web.
     Thus, for example, the indigestion and menstrual problems that you always thought were related to frustration and stress really are related. What's more, your allergies and shoulder tension are part of the same pattern. They all derive from a single underlying disharmony centered in your liver. Then you see that these patterns provide a pathway for treatment. Your gardener suggests some weeding and fertilizing in the form of stress relief and dietary suggestions to prepare the soil. Throwing some old anger and resentment into the compost heap might help too.
     Even though they are interconnected, all the issues won't be tackled at once. First, the problems that bother you most will be addressed. Palliative therapies might be used to provide relief, not as an end in themselves, but as a temporary aid and transitional device. Yet as your original problems fade, older deeper issues might become more obvious and shift the focus of therapy to the level of the organs or even broader to hormonal patterns. Later on as your relationship with this gardener becomes deeper and you become riper, the focus might even shift to long-standing emotional concerns, lingering attitudes or old buried traumas. With each stage of therapy the quality of your healing process becomes deeper and broader.
     This evolving dynamic of growth and transformation makes health care an art form and a service to humanity for the physician, who might otherwise sink into boredom and frustration prescribing the same drugs over and over again each day for years. Ask any physician to see their pharmacy or tell you about their favorite medicine and you'll know instantly whether you are talking to a gardener or a mechanic. The gardener will sparkle with enthusiasm and show you a broad selection of medicines, each with its own characteristics and special uses. Like any good gardener or cook, this doctor might even offer a sample and try some himself. Since, gardeners are inclined to natural medicines that are not usually dangerous they usually have tried their medicines. You won't find many mechanics experimenting with surgery or toxic drugs just to know what the patient's experience will be like. This is partly due to the fact that while both types of physicians work with medicines that have actions directed toward fighting illness, the gardeners have more medicines aimed at strengthening the body.
     Even though the gardener and the mechanic may seem quite stark in contrast, the best physicians have always been those who were able to function in either style. When you have an infection or an injury you usually couldn't care less about nurturing and wellness, you want someone to fix you. Most of standard medicine has considered this phase of the doctor-patient relationship to be all their responsibility and function. Yet many other doctors, and most patients, have recognized that soon the patient has to accept more and more responsibility. The situation is ripe when questions like "Why did this happen to me?" and "How can I avoid getting into this mess again?" start to emerge. Here medicine gives way to healing and treatment evolves into transformation. Dependency must give way to partnership. Ultimately the patient must assume full responsibility for their health.
     In this way, the doctor-patient relationship becomes less one of the treater and the treated, and more one of partners in health and learning. The medical philosophy rather than being polarized into one style or another presents as a willing enthusiasm to reflect the needs of the patient, to match the energy and concern which is there, and adopt the tools and style of practice which will truly address the problem being faced. Is this the kind of medicine you want? We think so, and thats why we practice it . . .

      All chronic illness, and most acute illness will have a basis in toxemia. What this means is that maldigestion will be occurring. This maldigestion, which may not be obvious, will result in fermentative and putretive reactions in the intestines. These processes will produce toxins and irritants - which will be absorbed through the intestinal walls into the bloodstream. The blood will be carrying a higher than normal amount of metabolic toxins and irritants throughout the body. This is a major cause of chronic inflammations. This will especially affect either organs or systems already under stress, or ones which are genetically or for other reasons, already weakened. This toxemia is the basis of most arthritis, autoimmune disease and degenerative diseases. It is also a basis of susceptibility to acute disease. If not the primary cause, it will be a contributing cause to chronic disease.
      To heal from such a condition, the first step must be the removal of causes. This means that the cause of toxemia must be addressed; that the digestion must be improved. Usually the first step in the process must be the identification and removal of those factors which negatively impact digestion these are usually diet and stress.
      The dietary causes have several aspects, and can therefore be approached from several directions. One is the identification and removal of specific foods which are not well tolerated by the specific persons digestive system in question. This can be done through a variety of methods. Another is to correct nutritional imbalances in the overall diet. This can be done by evaluating the general dietary patterns. A third is to select more easily digestible foods and prepare them in a more easily digestible ways. This follows several principles; much of which is obvious, such as the elimination of deeply fried foods, mucus-producing foods, etc. A fourth is to construct a diet which is overall more tolerable and nutritious, such as macrobiotic-type diet, the blood-type diet, or whatever is appropriate in a particular case.
      These generally require life-habit changes, and may be difficult, though are the most efficient. Stress and distress must be evaluated, and means identified to ameliorate them will be extremely important. In addition to dietary modifications, rest, movement, counseling, emotional/spiritual healing, as well as botanical nervines and homeopathic remedies are often addressed.