Dr. Ali’s Healing Journey
My journey into Integrative Functional Medicine began due to my own health issues, starting with residency, when we are expected to work for 80 hours during a week, then I started my job as an academician, with night calls and weekends. I was beginning to see weight gain, I was also feeling depressed, and agitated. I was experiencing digestive and hormonal issues and I attributed all of that to my work so I changed my job. Unfortunately, my next job was equally stressful with night calls and the constant expectation to see more and more patients. I realized that I had completely burnt out and my health was in jeopardy secondary to that.
I started trying to find out what I can do for my mood and my weight but the only option that I and my colleagues knew of was medications. Being a physician I had spent my entire career prescribing medications. I wanted to avoid taking them since I knew all about the short and long term side effect of these medications. So I started looking into alternatives and realized that there is a lot of research on the root causes of chronic diseases and symptoms and how lifestyle, nutrition, mind body techniques, botanicals, ayurvedic and Chinese herbs can help support my health. I was surprised that my med school education or residency had never exposed me to this form of healing. Once I realized that, I wanted to use the same treatment for my patients. Why would I want to treat them with medications with so many side effects, when they can find the root cause of their disease and reverse it. This journey has been very rewarding, and fascinating. The body has a lot of wisdom to it and as a physician, you learn as much as your patient in the process of healing.
