Barefoot Adventures in Tairona

Barefoot Adventures in Tairona

The trail in Tairona National Park, from the entrance of the park to the campsite we stayed at, took 4 hours to hike. Burdened with heavy backpacks and cotton shirts sticking to our backs with humid sweat, we traipsed through the jungle. Straw hats scratching hairlines, shoulder straps pressing into flesh and legs shuddering with the extra weight we climbed, feeling the rain tickling our skin, diluting our sweat in the hot, sticky air. There was nowhere to go but onward.

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Notes on the Community Healthcare Panel

Notes on the Community Healthcare Panel

Last Wednesday, November 14, a group of exceptionally socially-minded classmates and I held a Community Healthcare Panel. Despite the fact that it was held on a Wednesday night, the event proved to be nothing less than engaging and inspiring and, because of its success, I was asked by a number of students who couldn’t attend to offer up a synopsis of what was covered. So, here are my rough notes:

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Quotes from The Gathering: Chicago 2012

Quotes from The Gathering: Chicago 2012

Every year the naturopathic student community holds a philosophical conference at one of the accredited naturopathic medical schools in North America. For three days, naturopathic medical students and “elders” – seasoned professionals in practice for about 20 years or more – gather together in an event called (fittingly) The Gathering to share philosophical insights about the art and practice of naturopathic medicine. I have personally attended twice: my first year, in 2011, it was held at our own Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine (CCNM) in Toronto, Canada, and this year, in 2012, it was held at the National University of Health Sciences (NUHS) in Chicago, Illinois. Both times it hasn’t failed to be less than inspirational. Here are some golden nuggets of naturopathic insight from three amazing naturopathic doctors:

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Sometimes we forget that the textbooks are about the people all around us…

Sometimes we forget that the textbooks are about the people all around us…

I found this thought-provoking blog post from a 4th year North American medical student on the computerization of med school. As naturopathic medical students we like to think that we’re the only healthcare professionals that actually “care” about people. However, this is simply not true. I believe that most people get into medicine – any kind of medicine – for the right reasons, one of those reasons being a love for humanity. It’s only whether those reasons are still with us at the end of the 4 years that truly makes the difference.

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Easy Pill

Easy Pill

It’s astounding when I reflect on the fact that three years of immersion in naturopathic medical philosophy haven’t remedied the need for a quick-fix pill.  The pill itself has changed, to become more “natural” (with the assumption that natural is far superior to a synthetic derivative of the same drug with similar pharmaceutical effects), but our desire remains the same.

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Creating Aha! Moments in the Clinic

As a summer English as a Second Langauge (ESL) teacher I often attend teacher training workshops.  In a recent training session I attended, a grammar workshop, it was impressed upon us the importance of creating a learning environment in which we allow students to experience the language rule for themselves, rather than simply standing at the blackboard, teaching it to them.

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Spring Simplicity

Spring Simplicity

A few days ago I was faced with the challenge of moving out of the third floor of Nonna’s house.  This meant that I was going to have to complete the impossible task of squeezing the entire contents of an apartment-sized room into my modest-sized childhood bedroom.

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I Got the NPLEX Blues…

I am decidedly an empiricist.  No, this doesn’t mean that as a child I used to hover over ant hills with a magnifying glass, observing uncanny details about ant anatomy or looking at leaves under a microscope.  Well, maybe like all children I did this, but that kind of thing doesn’t interest me anymore.  Sadly…

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