Dr. Daria Blyskal, Taking a Holistic Approach to Health.

What does it mean to be a Holistic Medical Practitioner?

During the twentieth century there have certainly been great advances in medicine in the area of science and technology. At the same time, there has been a trend back to a more natural, humanistic approach to medicine, to balance the increasing feeling that our medical system is largely impersonal, overly complex, and too drug focused.  Our medical system has people taking their heart to a cardiologist, their stomach to a gastroenterologist, their skin to a dermatologist, and their depression to a psychologist. The whole person, the whole body-mind connection, and the interrelationship with diet and lifestyle gets lost in all this. We can end up taking too many pills, or the wrong ones, and not addressing our real health issues. The focus on treating the sick is so strong in western medicine that the person behind the illness is often ignored. Such is the legacy left to us by a for-profit insurance industry, and a rush to drug based solutions promoted by an enormously powerful pharmaceutical industry.

As a more holistic doctor, Dr. Blyskal seeks to assess the physical, emotional, moral and social aspects of a person as they relate to health and disease.  She certainly treats the sick and give flu shots and prescribe antibiotics and other necessary medications, but the practice also emphasizes prevention; concern for the environment and the food we eat; patient responsibility;  and ultimately using illness as a creative force to empower patients to change unhealthy behaviors.  Family medicine faces the challenge of integrating these humanistic concepts with science and this is what Dr. Blyskal has devoted herself to providing. Her implementation of effective, science-proven health care approaches in this arena sets her apart from other family medical practices.