1. Use therapies that don’t harm. Physicians should be as noninvasive as possible with treatments and should strive to avoid masking symptoms, which may interfere with healing.

 

2. Emphasize prevention. Physicians should promote habits that support a healthy lifestyle. This includes identifying risk factors and hereditary susceptibility to disease, and dealing with these to ward off potential illness.

 

3. Recognize the body’s inherent ability to heal. The physician’s role is to identify and remove obstacles to health and recovery and to encourage the body’s innate ability to heal itself.

 

4. Treat the whole person. People are complex organisms affected by interrelated physical, spiritual, mental, genetic and environmental factors.

 

5. Treat the cause, not the symptoms. The cause of disease may be physical, mental, emotional and/or spiritual. It is the physician’s job to uncover the cause and direct treatment at it, rather than at the symptoms.

 

6. Educate patients. Physicians should not only treat but also teach and encourage patients, helping them to take responsibility for their health.

Source: Natural Health magazine, October 1999