Functional Medicine III

Let’s look at one example.

A unknown number of Functional Medicine adherents broadcast call-in programs on radio stations. One FM physician, a Dr. “D” in Northern California graduated from UC Davis School of Medicine (Central California’s Sacramento Valley.) I find her program fascinating, requiring some attentive listening.

Dr. D’s recommendations for people’s complaints and conditions are often complex, a chimera of standard explanations and therapies, but painted with a variety of views that are anything but standard. The problem I found was that some of each answer was rational – especially the logic of her differential diagnosis – but suddenly spun out into space with unfamiliar methods or some recognizable as one component or another of sectarianism. Some answers had no relationship to the problem at hand, but seemed to be plucked out of a firmament of independent ideas, theories, ideologies, and personal anecdotes – a medical Separate Reality.

One can be carried along by an answer that sounds on surface reasonable because of the confidence and the delivery’s vocal tone. Her voice is medium-low, sort of a mezzo or contralto. It’s a voice ideal for advice; confidence oozes. Some of her separate reality recommendations she precedes with a biochemical or physiological explanation, so the shifting from standard to “separate reality” grids goes so smoothly, the usual recognizable red flags may not spring up.

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