At a recent seminar, I heard a brilliant colleague of mine, Dr. John Bandy, a chiropractor and kinesiologist, say that “philosophy never changes, but the evidence always does.” I thought this was a keen observation the moment I heard it. Science is constantly changing as our information and points of reference evolve. And if we base our philosophy on the ever-chang- ing evidence, our philosophy is always changing. And a philosophy that constantly changes is really just an opinion. It is precisely the unchanging nature of philosophy that makes it useful and the changing nature of opin- ions that does the opposite. When everything around us is changing and wavering, our philosophy holds strong and guides our path. This doesn’t mean we stop pursuing science, however. Instead, we maintain our philos- ophy that the body is perfect and intelligent, and that healing comes from within, while we look for the hard evidence to make our interventions more effective, natural, and safe.
If the doctor has no philosophy, no higher understanding of purpose or mission, he or she simply becomes a highly educated mechanic. Mechan- ics are great for cars, but that approach doesn’t work for human health. The human body is not a machine; it is an organism housing life, energy, and consciousness that is capable of self-correction. The body will heal it- self when the conditions change inside the body to create health. Remove what is offending the body and add what is needed, and the body will heal itself. A doctor simply must determine what needs to be removed—foods, chemicals, toxins, physical traumas, etc.—and design a program around a patient’s individual needs. This is what the doctor of the future is all about.
The future of healthcare belongs to doctors who use nature and the hu- man body’s own innate healing potential as their main tools. In fact, if we approach healing and healthcare with an open mind, it is apparent that the body’s own intelligence to right itself is superior to anything mankind can discover or invent.
When each of us is properly educated about the functions of our own body, each of us will in fact become our own doctor. In other words, the doctor of the future will be the educated patients themselves! By learning how to listen to the signals in our body, each of us will have the power to self-cor- rect many of the common problems we all face. Although this idea will undoubtedly give pharmaceutical companies and hospital administrators heartburn, it is the only way out of our current predicament. In the future, doctors will teach their patients how to heal and give the power back to the patients. This is the revolution in healthcare that we desperately need.