Traditional Western Medicine vs. Functional Medicine

I get asked all the time, what’s the difference between traditional western medicine and functional medicine? Why did I want to learn more? (Well, besides from being a professional student, and always craving to learn) I found many of the same patterns with my patients that I couldn’t explain.  As I learned different concepts within functional medicine, where we get to root causes of the issue/symptom at the cellular level within the body, and see the interconnectedness, things started making more sense to me, and I was able to help my patients in a different way. 

To be very clear, I’m not bashing traditional medicine at all, I believe in it 100%! (and have practiced it for many years with great results for my patients).  But, times change, the world changes, and sometimes we need more in order to get healthy and stay healthy. Sometimes we need to look at things in a different way. That’s where I feel functional medicine complements traditional medicine.   

I found this diagram this morning, and I think it helps explain what I’m talking about.