Holistic health practitioners must know the nature of a patient’s problem before they can design a protocol to address it. Advocates of natural medicine tend to disagree with the conventional medical community, but it is important to remember that although their methods may be different, traditional tools of investigation can still be valuable to holistic practitioners.

“While there are some good natural diagnostic tools to determine a problem’s origin, sometimes the tools of allopathic medicine are simply superior. Ultrasound, MRI, blood tests and pathogen screening can all be of enormous value when considering how to heal a condition of damage or sickness,” says Nature’s Rite Founder Steven Frank. “If someone is bleeding internally, knowing the source—ulcer, tumor, hemorrhoids or liver disease—is of paramount importance. All of these have dramatically different treatment protocols. When a patient’s energy is low, knowing their blood work and pathogen load is of tremendous value towards designing a healing program.”

While allopathic medicine may seek to poison, cut or irradiate the problem, natural medicine professionals may choose the appropriate combination of herbs, acupuncture, qigong or other natural products and modalities. “Having the knowledge of exactly what is damaged and then using the techniques that we know are most suited for healing this condition is what collaborative medicine is all about,” explains Frank. “In our quest to bring natural medicine to the community, we don’t have to shun the diagnostic benefits of the high-technology hospitals. We can use their tools to accentuate our skills.”

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