Is integrative medicine similar to naturopathy, or is it different?
There’s certainly an overlapping, there’s an area that we share with naturopathy, but as an integrative GP, I am a doctor. So I am particularly concerned with the diagnosis. Having said that I’m also interested in supporting the whole physiology and biochemistry, I am interested in the diagnosis as well. When someone comes to me for the first time, it really is my responsibility to sort out that they haven’t got any well-defined medical condition that has not been found before. – Dr Hickey
For example, I find people who’ve come with conditions. For example, chronic fatigue. They’ve seen a lot of doctors and a lot of naturopaths, and as strangely as it might sound, sometimes I find they’ve got a simple iron deficiency, which somehow they missed or it might be that it wasn’t there to begin with but now it is. That’s, I think, how we differ, that we’re still doctors, we’re still doing a complete medical consult, but we’re just bringing some other aspects to the treatment.