Bastyr Nation By Bob Condor There are many ways to join the Bastyr Nation. For Petra Eichelsdoerfer, the entry point was long, painful and life-changing. Eichelsdoerfer is a trained pharmacist. For most of the 1990s, she worked for the Seattle-King County public health department dispensing both prescriptions and compassion at its main clinic that targeted indigent populations, family planning, refugee services and travel medicine. Her busy schedule—she is the mother of three teenagers—didn’t help much to calm chronic digestive problems. In March 1996, doctors persuaded Eichelsdoerfer to undergo gallbladder surgery and a cosmetic "tummy tuck" procedure. There were complications. Eichelsdoerfer suffered internal abdominal bleeding during her at-home recovery. She was out of work for many weeks beyond the planned few days off. Four months later, the external wound was still "popping open." In July, Eichelsdoerfer decided it was time to visit the Bastyr University Health Center, where some 34,000 Seattle area residents are treated each year. It is the signature clinic for Bastyr’s naturopathic medical school and the state’s biggest natural medicine clinic. Practitioners from all over the U.S. visit each week to get a peek at how a natural health clinic can prosper and serve its community so directly. "I showed up bleeding," recalls Eichelsdoerfer, 39. "Once the doctors managed to hide their horror, they put me on high doses of vitamins [A and C] plus zinc to encourage and maintain tissue growth." The healing process required a few more weeks, but Eichelsdoerfer had entered what let’s call the Bastyr Nation. It is a growing movement of both practitioners and patients who are making natural medicine part of everyday health care. They are changing the setpoint of getting well and staying that way. For her part, Eichelsdoerfer was willing to do more than simply take some of those pills she only months earlier dispensed regularly. Eichelsdoerfer was ready or desperate enough or both to put her faith in the plant-based medicine of naturopathy, along with Bastyr’s other primary disciplines of nutrition therapy and traditional Chinese herbs and acupuncture. "The doctors at the clinic had never seen anything like it," says Eichelsdoerfer. "I think every intern, resident and attending physician came to see me that afternoon. They would come in, go out to conference, come back in, go out to conference, then come back in." The give-and-take worked for Eichelsdoerfer. Other patients and their family members echo their gratitude for similar detective work by clinic naturopaths on personal health challenges ranging from allergies to chronic fatigue syndrome. Bastyr is the sort of instinctive place that not only teaches its students how to grow herbs in the university’s garden plots, but arranges the crops by body function. You will find fennel, peppermint and lemon balm grown in the area for the digestive tract. Master garderners are careful to grow the herbs closest to native conditions to create the highest medicinal potency. Upon harvesting, students work in seven labs to process the herbs into tinctures, teas, powders and dried leaves. While Bastyr’s herb garden wouldn’t be one you see repeated at major medical schools, the presence of natural medicine has sprouted at university clinics and big-city health care centers from coast to coast. One of every two Americans seek out some form of "alternative" or "complementary" medicine, says Dr. David Eisenberg, a Harvard University researcher who has conducted landmark studies. What’s more, many of those Americans are paying billions of dollars out-of-pocket for such medical attention. Of course, in Washington, we are fortunate to have complementary therapies routinely covered by health insurance plans. Some locals were privy to the country’s first such Blue Cross Blue Shield coverage in 1994. While Seattle area residents can choose among many dozens of naturopathic physicians, their urban counterparts in, say, Chicago, can’t even find one in the phone book and certainly not in a preferred practitioner guide. Naturopathic physicians (N.D.) are not licensed in Illinois (same for New York and most of the Midwest and East). Our wealth of natural medicine resources almost wasn’t so. In 1976, Bill Mitchell and Joe Pizzorno were part of the final Seattle graduating class at the National College of Naturopathic Medicine. The pioneering school was moving to Portland after 20 years in our city. Mitchell, Pizzorno and third naturopathic doctor-friend, Les Griffith were worried that losing the National College would translate to the "sunsetting" of naturopathic medicine in the region and state. They talked regularly around their kitchen tables, where many worthy ideas are germinated. "It looked like the state was no longer going to license naturopaths," says Mitchell, who started his popular Queen Anne practice nearly 40 years ago. "We decided to start a college of our own." The homespun strategy worked. The three physicians vowed to establish a naturopathic school based on science, in part to bridge the gap with conventional medicine but mostly because all three men believed in the power of scientific rigor. Bastyr is committed to documenting its successful and unsuccessful outcomes. That way, doctors around the country will know if, say, the right dose of vitamins can heal stubborn wounds or acupuncture helps ease asthma. Twenty-five years later, as Bastyr celebrates the notable anniversary, the proof is in those 34,000 people who show up at the clinic each year and the 1,200 students pursuing degrees. Bastyr is clearly a leader in educating naturopathic physicians. If are wondering, the school was named to honor a pioneering naturopathic physician and educator, John Bastyr, who practiced in the Northwest for 57 years. As importantly, Bastyr is sitting at a much bigger table of national health care policy. The federal government National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine counts Bastyr as one of only eight founding research institutions (designated as the lead center for HIV-AIDS research). The other seven institutions are all what might be labeled big-name university medical schools. On a parallel track, Bastyr has been heavily involved in helping other states to become naturopath-friendly. Its biggest victory to date is pending. Legislation to license N.D.s in California has passed and only awaits signature by the governor (who has been a bit preoccupied lately). There are other local signs pointing to the influence of the Bastyr Nation. One of Bastyr’s physicians, xxx, sits on the board of the Harborside Medical Center, a big and decidedly mainstream medical institution in town. Many neighborhood medical practices include both the more traditional M.D.s and naturopaths in the same offices, while others routinely refer between M.D.s and N.D.s depending on the patient’s diagnosis. "It makes sense to work together on a lot of things," says Mitchell. The affable naturopath is straightforward about one of Bastyr’s missions as the school weighs the next 25 years. "One major goal of Bastyr is a drug-free America," says Mitchell, referring to prescription and over-the-counter medications. "We need to know how to take care of ourselves without drugs. Twenty million U.S. kids on Ritalin [the leading medication prescribed for attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorders] is not good for the American psyche." On the other hand, Mitchell doesn’t recommend going cold-turkey with prescription drugs recommended by M.D.s "Patients often come to me terrified," says Mitchell. "They report not feeling well physically, mentally or emotionally. They are taking five, six, seven major drugs and worried sick about the side effects." Mitchell usually surprises patients by telling them to stay on most or all of the drugs during an interim period. He recognizes the body becomes dependent on medications and works to gradually loosen the pharmaceutical grip. "Natural medicine proves itself to be effective," says Mitchell. "At the [Bastyr] clinic, we don’t recommend drugs that kill people. We don’t attract lawsuits or even complaints." One sure harbinger of natural medicine’s rising stature is how people refer to the treatments. What was once called "alternative" medicine is now commonly called "complementary" medicine to indicate that natural medicine and conventional care (basically surgery and drugs) co-exist among patient options. The term, "integrative medicine," has been increasingly used by practitioners who want to emphasize that all forms of medical treatment need to fit together for the patient’s best outcome. The idea is to break down biases. One way to accelerate the process is to conduct research that wins over the mainstream medical community. Studies published in major medical journals can draw respect, plus media coverage. A well-done presentation at a medical conference can change perceptions in just an hour. "We are doing the research not to prove ourselves, but to make ourselves and natural medicine better," says Pizzorno, an accomplished author and past Bastyr president who was appointed in February to the federal government’s Medicare Coverage Advisory Committee. The latest edition of his natural medicine textbook, co-authored with fellow N.D. Michael Murray, has 250 chapters and more than 20,000 peer-reviewed scientific citations. "We wanted to show how science can be used to bridge any gap [between conventional medicine and natural health therapies]," says Pizzorno. "What surprised me about our progress as a univeristy is I never thought we would grow to be so big. We clearly met a social need." Pizzorno says a certain amount of resistance came from within the fledgling Bastyr Nation itself during early days. "There was antipathy toward science because science was used as a bludgeon by the American Medical Association," says Pizzorno. There was a fear that joining the medical establishment would be worse than beating them. As it turned out, Pizzorno says there was already plenty of research available. Studies on herbal remedies were plentiful in European and Asian medical journals. Lots of nutritional research was available in U.S. publications. The research helped Bastyr become established as an academic institution. What created the most momentum were success stories like the one experienced by Eichelsdoerfer over the years—plus an innate curiosity among most sick people who want to get better. Eichelsdoerfer herself heard a lot of questions about herbal remedies. "People would ask me questions I couldn’t answer," said Eichelsdoerfer, who is also a trained nutritionist. "I decided to attend continuing education courses about herbs and nutrition to help people. I ran out of courses to take." Eichelsdoerfer decided it was time to dig even deeper into her newfound respect for natural medicine. This past summer, she earned her degree as a naturopathic physician. She plans to teach at Bastyr and the University of Washington. She plans to conduct research exploring the potential relationship between natural health care (especially herbs and nutrition therapy) and weight control. These days, Eichelsdoerfer is a full-fledged member of the Bastyr Nation. "I always remember one older Russian woman I saw one day at the pharmacy counter [at the public health department]," says Eichelsdoerfer. "She told me, ‘This ibuprofen works OK but it’s not as good as the pomegrante juice I used to drink at home.’ " It worked wonders for her arthritis aches and pains. I’ve come to believe that woman may well be right."