Welcome to Integrative Primary Care!

Welcome to Integrative Primary Care and the You First, Naturally blog! Our goal is to create a place for questions and conversation as they relate to the state of our health and vitality.

Integrative Primary Care is a family medicine clinic providing care to residents of Virginia. I am a Family Nurse Practitioner and Clinical Herbalist practicing family medicine, managing acute and chronic illnesses, providing preventative care, and urgent care. 

As a practitioner, I don’t want to just help “fix” a person’s health when it feels broken, I want to encourage thoughts and actions that lead people towards a state of vitality. I want my thoughts, words, and actions to look beyond preventative care. My aim is to help people see that every part of our lives - mental, emotional, spiritual and physical contribute to how our health, and sense of well being is manifested.

So, I figured my first blog should be about...

“What in the World is Integrative Health Care Anyway?!”

The National Institute of Health/National Center for Complimentary and Integrative Health define integrative health this way - “Integrative health care often brings conventional and complementary approaches together in a coordinated way. It emphasizes a holistic, patient-focused approach to health care and wellness—often including mental, emotional, functional, spiritual, social, and community aspects—and treating the whole person rather than, for example, one organ system.”

What strikes me about this definition is the  “patient-focused approach”, and the first question I ask myself is, “shouldn’t this be the case regardless of the type of healthcare we seek out?!”  So, to give conventional medicine a chance to explain itself, I looked to the National Cancer Institute and they defined it as “A system in which medical doctors and other healthcare professionals (such as nurses, pharmacists, and therapists) treat symptoms and diseases using drugs, radiation, or surgery.”... there isn’t even MENTION of the patient, let alone that it would be focused upon them.

So, not only do I incorporate non-conventional therapies into my practice, using herbs, supplements, nutrition and lifestyle changes, but I also TAKE TIME to get to know my patients. This is why my appointments are longer than a conventional 15-minute appointment, significantly longer, and I will make sure that this patient-focused approach is of primary importance.

Our patient-focused practice values the time and connection with each patient to ensure their health concerns are heard, addressed and resolved. In short, we put You First, Naturally.

Contact me with any questions and to start your journey with Integrative Primary Care!

Yours in Health and Vitality,

Jude Christian NPC

Medical Director, Practitioner