This may seem off the beaten path from my usual subject matter but it’s all related.
Last week it was announced that Dr. Casey Means is the nominee for the U.S. Surgeon General, as nominated by President Trump.
Two Peas in a Pod
As a female physician currently in “the system”, I really look up to this woman. I started following her last year as her face came across my algorithm and I learned who she was and what she stood for.
This isn’t in some fan-girl sense. I don’t know her. But I feel proud of her and I feel seen. She is saying my thoughts.
I read her book Good Energy and I would recommend this book to anyone searching for health for themselves or loved ones.
As I read it, I kept thinking, She’s like the West coast version of me. I would read some of her recommendations and say, that’s what I tell my patients and clients.
I’d already employed many of her recommendations in my own life (for myself and my family).
Long before I knew who she was or read her book, I made baby food for my kids. They never had store-bought baby food. Never. I gave them soft, whole foods like banana and avocado. I pureed single-ingredients like blueberry, mango, cauliflower. I moved into adding spices, protein and combining ingredients. I also did not use plastic trays for freezing the purees, they were made of silicone and stainless steel.
To this day it seems that when I’m not at work (my job), I’m working at home. It’s that important, but the meaning of each “job” is entirely different. What I do at home reflects the health I can provide for myself and my children. That’s very fulfilling.
Ironically as a trained, licensed, board-certified professional in women’s health, I can’t provide such health for patients.
I started making bread and although Casey would say to avoid grains altogether, since my kids eat bread, I make it myself with organic flour. We plant a garden and my kids love to water it and watch it grow. This work we are doing at home is health in itself for our kids in being outside, showing them how to meaningfully work and enjoy the fruits of their labor (literally). These aren’t just tasks, they are ongoing life lessons that feed our bodies and our lives.
The System
Practicing modern medicine has become a series of tasks. Some of it has been to good end - patient safety and consent, for example. Though the protocolization, clicking, prescription writing and surgical management leaves something to be desired both for patients and (some) doctors.
There’s a promise in medical training that after residency, things will get better. Suffer now, enjoy later. You’ll make more money and work less. It’s sort of like the LIV golfers. They sold their souls to Saudi Arabia and we sold ours to the medical establishment. While I make more money in an absolute sense, I’ve actually never worked harder than I do right now. As an attending now five years after residency, I can work up to 110 hours a week. My shortest work week is 70 hours.
Pair this with an increasingly sick population, not limited to my town or institution, but across the nation (and world, for that matter). It’s impossible not to feel like a hamster on a wheel when I’m running faster than ever but I’m not getting anywhere - no one is getting better.
When interviewed by Bill Maher, Casey said that the American people are tired of being gaslit that nothing is wrong. Wrong with their health, wrong with their doctors, the training of the doctors, the health institutions and insurance companies. It’s my belief that the most tired-of-being-gaslit population is American women.
Here is what I see, on a daily basis as a practicing Obgyn:
Girls are getting their periods at younger ages
Periods across age groups are heavier and more painful
Mental illness is ubiquitous
Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome is so common it’s mind-blowing
Reproductive-aged women unable to conceive or maintain a pregnancy
Reproductive-aged women are being diagnosed with cancer
Chronic illness manifesting in pregnancy so we label it “gestational”
Menopause is happening at younger ages
In addition, while I don’t see this physically, it has now been documented that microplastics are found in human placentas and ovarian follicular fluid. I can’t say for certain what effect that has, but I know for certain that plastic is not biological to the placenta, ovary, or any other human part.
I actually have nothing uniquely against the institution that employs me (and it’s a big one), this isn’t unique to where I practice. I have found co-workers to be outstanding. The effort to do right by patients is unparalleled, yet we always seem to be behind. It’s a system of putting out fires.
These issues aren’t contained to one hospital system. They may each have nuances and employees may have gripes, but it is the system at large that is problematic.
Having a new surgeon general who has championed a better food system, cellular and metabolic health is a refreshing deviation from the medical establishment. In fact, completing medical training was a detour from the study of cellular biology that I had in college. Make that make sense. The human body is made up of cells that became organs that become systems and a whole. We cannot delete the foundation and expect the building not to crumble.
It gives hope to many of us who feel that citing (read: reciting) guidelines and “managing” may be less optimal than questioning and preventing.
The Media Response
The media quickly dug for dirt on Casey after the nomination was announced. I send my kids outside to dig in actual dirt, I highly recommend it. They call her a “wellness influencer” and cite her resignation from her residency program, a tack to undermine her credibility and training. In her book, she discusses that she left the residency with very little time to go. A ballsy move.
I call her choice to leave residency a ballsy move because it’s very easy to get stuck on the path. We’re never taught what other options exist besides the one traditional way. Even on the traditional path, there is so much debt from medical school (average over $200k) that it’s risky to venture off it.
The oversimplification by the media is blatant to someone like me but wouldn’t be obvious to the average listener. First of all, not everyone finishes residency, by their own choice or otherwise. They can still practice medicine. They might even be staffing your neighborhood urgent or stat care facility. I had my state medical license before I finished residency. The training programs are governed by their own system. These governing bodies in medicine are all distinct.
When you finish medical school, you are a doctor. What comes next is really up to each doctor: residency, medical license, board certification, practice. You can certainly practice medicine without being board-certified. This is something that black-and-white media headlines will fail to recognize or understand. The traditional medical path is very linear but a growing number of physicians are breaking this mold which in my opinion, is for our benefit.
One physician on the internet draws a connection between Casey’s interest in glucose and metabolic health as a conflict of interest with her co-founding of Levels, a continuous glucose monitoring and metabolic health company. He suggests that she’s interested in glucose because she’s the founder of said company. How about the opposite? She started the company because of seeing people so metabolically unhealthy and overloaded with sugar. Practicing physicians make for great founders because we see the holes that can be filled (I have ideas, talk to me).
Where Do We Go
Many things that have been sold to us, our parents, and our grandparents for convenience have backfired. They were sold pesticides to make gardens better. Better yet, buy it from the store and you don’t need your own garden at all. They were sold Wonder Bread. They were sold plastic: plastic toys, plastic containers, plastic bags. Everything became disposable, less washing! They were sold televisions and we were sold device after device. Women, in particular, were sold that with all these conveniences, they weren’t needed in the home anymore.
It’s time to reclaim our independence from such conveniences and make ourselves healthier in doing so.
The food, the whole food and nothing but the food. Cut the ultra-processed foods and the added pesticides.
Movement. This isn’t just dedicated exercise, but purposeful movement throughout the day as opposed to our sedentary, indoor lifestyle.
Outdoor time. The sun is beneficial to us. There are apps so you know when and how long to be in the sun without burning. It sets our biological clock that we have been trying to ignore.
Cut conflicts of interest. The dietary guidelines, vaccine schedules, and medical literature can be riddled with bias.
For those that question real food, real light, real work, and real truth, their motives should be questioned. It is too easy to draw a line in the sand based on political party. No one in their right mind wants their kids to be sick or die sooner than their parents.
For the medical establishment disgruntled with public distrust, it’s time to have an open mind to plausible alternatives to health. The “wellness influencers” didn’t create the public desire to feel better, that desire already existed.
Resources:
Some of the information contained in this article is the result of my training, medical knowledge, and personal experience without a specific source to be cited.
This is not medical advice.
These opinions are my own.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33395930/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0147651325002040#:~:text=Microplastics were found in human,mL, mean diameter 4.48 µm.&text=Microplastics may enter ovaries through bloodstream, reaching the granulosa cells.