Are You and Your Doctor Speaking the Same Language?
Your doctor’s philosophy is not as objective as the lab results you get. Here is how to find a physician who actually sees health the way you do.
You walk into your doctors office or login to your telehealth app and pretty quickly you get a sense about your doctor. They ask you specific questions that may sometimes feel a bit rehearsed, they give you a few options, tell you what will happen next, and that’s the appointment.
Each physician is both a healthcare professional and a patient - a consumer of healthcare services, much like yourself. This person has certain viewpoints and biases in regards to nutrition, exercise, and clinical medicine.
Welcome to the Physician-Led Health Coaching weekly newsletter. I’m Dr. Ashori, a board-certified physician turned health coach. I help people fix brain fog, fatigue, and stubborn weight before they turn into real disease.
What’s Health Philosophy
Do you believe in medications for everything or a lifestyle approach first? That’s your personal health philosophy.
Health philosophy is how a person thinks about health and healing. What information they use to come up with their heuristic to make health decisions for themselves, their patients, and loved ones.
My health philosophy as a physician is that health is a constantly evolving phenomenon. It’s the ebb and flow of the way your body responds to external conditions.
Clinical information is shaped by the research that we do in Western Medicine but the decisions I make for my patients are done in a cooperation together and not something that I rain down on them from a pulpit.
What’s Health?
There is no single definition of health. Each of us has our own unique definition of it. For one person it’s having normal blood tests, for another it’s feeling energetic, vibrant, and recovering well from disease.
What’s your definition of health? What tools are you comfortable using to achieve it?
Sharing Your Doctor’s Health Philosophy
Some doctors have a more fluid health philosophy and they adjust it readily for each patient. I like this approach because it keeps the conversation going without leaving the patient feeling judged.
This doctor’s goal is to figure out how you define health and what’s important to you. They see their role as an expert to help you achieve your ideal health (not theirs.)
When you and your doctor both have the same health philosophy it’s like two old friends talking about health over some coffee or beer. The conversation is often deeper, nuanced, and you both learn from each other.
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Defining Your Own Health Philosophy
My health philosophy has definitely evolved over time but at its core I believe that we have the ability to affect our health with the daily decisions we make.
The goal is to make daily small decisions that help our bodies heal, recover, and rebuild. A process that’s different for each person.
1. Maximalist or Minimalist?
Back when I worked in the urgent care, I would have someone walk in with 24 hours of a miserable cough, runny nose and congestion. They wanted everything thrown at this thing: cough syrup, steroid injection, antibiotics, and inhalers. This is a maximalist.
I would also have someone walk in with chest pain, sweating, shortness of breath and an ominous EKG. But they didn’t want to go to the ER or take medication unless their life was in danger. That’s a minimalist.
Most of us are somewhere in the middle. My wife makes fun of me for refusing to take NSAIDs for a sprain or even a topical anti-inflammatory unless absolutely necessary.
When you know yourself well enough and are okay with the consequences of a decision, you become an empowered consumer of healthcare. You gain expertise and confidence.
2. Empowered or Authority Driven?
Some of my patients prefer to let their doctor make all the important health decisions. They have agency and often quite knowledgeable but they don’t want to have to make all of their health decisions.
Others prefer to do the research on their own, have lengthy discussions with their doctor, and then make their final health decisions.
If you’re the latter, you need the kind of doctor who’ll spend hours with you discussing all the consequences and upsides of a health decision. They’ll share their experience and help you look around the corner.
3. Lifestyle or Treatment?
When that cholesterol level gets past a certain level will you reach for medication or change your lifestyle?
The maximalist may do both and the minimalist may not even believe in the consequences of an elevated lipid level.
But lifestyle changes aren’t always easy to implement, especially if you don’t know which has the highest chance of success in you.
4. Biohacker or Evidence-Based?
Are you the person who lines up for the newest peptide or supplement? You do the sauna and light therapy and have your own ozone machine?
Or perhaps you prefer to have at least 10 years of evidence before trying a new treatment.
Your doctor doesn’t have to believe in peptides to know how to help manage your health. But they should be inquisitive enough to want to learn and know what potential side effects to monitor for.
5. Contrarian or Mainstream?
The contrarian may believe that Western Medicine is inherently evil and vaccines are harmful. They don’t trust treatments and may overly rely on ‘natural’ treatments.
The mainstream individual believes that as long as it has the seal of approval from the AMA or Western Medicine, it’s legitimate.
I’ve taken care of both patients on both sides of the spectrum. What matters to me is that that each person develops a more nuanced perspective after enough visits with me. I’m not trying to change their mind - just nuance.
Disclaimer:
Dr. Mohammad Ashori is a U.S.-trained family medicine physician. The content shared here is for education and general guidance. It is not personal medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment, and it does not create a doctor-patient relationship. Humans are complicated and your personal details matter. Your healthcare team is your best resource before making medical decisions, changing medications, or managing symptoms. This information is to help you add more depth to those conversations.
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