Intergrative Medicine for Long-Term Wellness

Steve Adubato goes One-on-One with Dr. Tracy Scheller, Medical Director of The Graf Center for Integrative Medicine and Gynecologist at Englewood Health, who explains what integrative medicine is and ways in which patients are using it for long-term relief.

11/12/18 #2177

 

 

 

 

 

Excerpt:

"We're pleased to be joined by Dr. Tracy Scheller, medical director at the Graf Center for Integrative Medicine and she's also a gynecologist at Englewood Health. Good to see you. Thank you. That's a fascinating title. First, in terms of the graf Center for Integrative Medicine but the gynecologist part... which part comes first? Sure. So, I am an obstetrician gynecologist, and I deliver... an OBGYN? OBGYN. Right? ...for 12 years delivering babies at Englewood hospital. Then I stopped the obstetrical all part of my life and decided to do GYN only. So, I started my own practice in gynecology, but then I went back to school and worked on a Masters of Science and nutrition at Columbia, and that got me involved with integrative medicine and Englewood hospital. I became part of their advisory board at the graf Center and then I started a fellowship in integrative medicine. You keep using the term integrative medicine... Yes. And I don't want to assume, doctor that everyone knows what it means. What does it mean? give us an example of it. Sure. So, that is bringing together conventional medicine and complementary therapies in a coordinated and evidence-based way to help the healing process. Can we make that a little... more... grounded in... yes. Someone says "oh, that's it." Yes. So, for example... for example, someone has diabetes or high blood pressure so someone says "I'm just going to treat it with some medicine..." Exactly Their doctor prescribes medications, but... yet they're overweight. obese. They don't have good nutritional skills, they do not exercise, and they're crazy stressed at work. And integrative medicine would incorporate... Exactly. So, we talk about the root of all their problems, we put the patient at the center, we say "Hey, let's invest you in your own health process and talk about some modalities that you can work on to improve your own health. So let's get you into two nutritional counseling, let's talk about what exercise you're doing..." and "Oh you're very stressed? Let's talk about meditation... mindfulness... what things are you doing for yourself?" Massage therapy... maybe acupuncture, Reiki and introducing those modalities that have evidence and have been shown to be quite helpful. I'm curious about something. In terms of Integrative Medicine and its connection to your work as a gynecologist... or the OB side as well... give me some examples there. I'm curious about that. absolutely. In obstetrics, when we talk about the stressors of being pregnant, postpartum, the changes that we go through, hormonally, having a new child, postpartum depression plays a role, integrative resources like meditation, mindfulness, can help people with a lot of those changes that are going..."