I created the hubND patient preparation page in an effort to build a one-stop shop for naturopathic students and physicians. It’s a page that is thoroughly hyperlinked with all the best medical and naturopathic resources. It will launch you in all the right directions and be a place that you can keep coming back to. When you need to cross all your t’s and dot all your i’s this is right place to do it.
Have you ever done something your way, just to realize later that there are easier ways? Have you ever tried to prepare for a patient and you ended up just googling things because you didn’t know the best resources out there? Has your bookmarks bar become overburdened with all the websites you want to remember to use when working with patients? Did you not learn about examine.com until your last quarter in medical school? If you answered yes to any of these questions then we have something in common. Patient preparation is daunting! Creating the best treatment plan is difficult. Well, at least it was, until now! Welcome to the patient prep page of hubND.org–Everything you need to get you started on your treatment sheet and then some. I created the hubND patient preparation page to make patient prep a stressless, fulfilling experience. I created it to make it fun, easy, and engaging. When used correctly, it will optimize your treatment plans and your patients will thank you.
As an example, I had a new patient a couple weeks ago, a 43 year old male with Down Syndrome. His mom wanted me to help in any way that I could. I had never treated someone with Trisomy 21 before, but my trepidation dissipated as I started using hubND.
I opened hubnd.org and went to the patient prep resource. I first read about Down Syndrome on UpToDate to get a broad overview. Then I went to NDNR’s search function and typed in “Down Syndrome” to see if any naturopathic physicians had written on the topic. I found two very relevant articles that served as the foundation of my treatment sheet and taught me why N-acetyl cysteine might not be a good candidate for trying to boost glutathione status in this patient population. Furthermore, knowing that exercise and weight loss would be important factors in possibly decreasing his sleep apnea I copied and pasted some of the low impact exercises on the phys med tab for him to follow along with at home. His mom had requested some home workout routines, so this was perfect.
From UpToDate and the NDNR article I also knew that preventing Alzheimers was of paramount importance in this patient population so I also added a specific supplement to start addressing that. The supplement contained herbs that are not only indicated for Alzheimer prevention but could simultaneously improve the hypotonia in my patient by decreasing acetylcholine esterase activity. I then checked the MotivationalDoc channel to see if he had any self help tricks for sleep apnea and then Dr. Greger’s work to see if he had uncovered anything in the literature in terms of nutrition. In preparation for a follow up I’ll also be entering his typical diet choices into cronometer. This will give me a good idea of what nutrients his body may be chronically low in. And lastly I’ll continue to check Google Scholar and Pubmed for any exciting new research into natural treatments for Down Syndrome. If a full text article isn’t available I can use the sci-hub link. This nifty little website gives you full text access to virtually any research article immediately. Thank you Russian hackers. Dr. Greger even does a video about the usefulness of sci-hub and how researchers are glad more people can now access their research. If this doesn’t appeal to you, you can always go through your school’s library option.
Needless to say, the patient prep resource on hubND gave me knowledge to treat this patient with confidence. And with all the hyperlinks already embedded into the patient prep resource it bolstered my efficiency and I loved every minute of it.