The following blog request touched me deeply and I want to answer this first. I will post the request and follow with an answer:
"Request"
Denise
Answer:
First of all, I want to repeat how deeply this has touched me. And, I want to say that I too have missed this. But, my restraining myself in posting this more "human" type posts was intentional. Many sad things have happened behind the scenes and it has changed the way I have felt about practicing in a profound way. Sadly I have become much more careful about what I say and have felt that people want more clinical and less human. It is really wonderful to know that this is not true for everyone, as I feel that the human condition has as much to do with becoming well as any treatment. The second thing I would like to say, is it made me very sad that it seemed everyone just disappeared off of this site. I didnt understand why that happened until recently, when I really understood that people have been primarily focusing on a private facebook group.
While it is so wonderful that those people (and I do not know who any of you are) have found a place to share information and and feelings, it excludes those who are not a part of that, lessens the visibility and "presence" of this site for both current people who are not included in that site as well as new people to find, and tremendously minimizes the community here. I know that was not anyone's intention, but that is what has happened I believe. Because so many people were not here and were there, I have felt that people were not really focused on me or this site. So, it has made me feel more and more that posting here was unimportant.
For me, doing this work was something that life brought to me without choice. It began as my own journey of survival and evolved into a journey of changing the lives of other human beings. In my young life I was never of the intention to become any kind of medical practitioner. This just happened and I am ever grateful for the opportunity to have traveled upon this path. But, in addition to the medical aspect of what drives me to do this work, the non-medical part of me-the part of me that existed before ever thinking about medicine or earning my Ph.D.-that part is what drives me to do what I do. Touching other people is what motivates and interests me as much as the medicine. And perhaps that is why Chinese medicine made so much sense to me because it embraces every aspect of the human being-the physiological and the emotional and how that person fits into the picture of the universe itself.
All of this and the litigious climate of medicine today have both played a part in me pulling back from sharing the kinds of posts to which you are referring Denise. I am so touched to know that it has been missed. I am going to make an effort to bring that part of what I do back for those that feel saddened by it's absence.
Life is full of such incredible wonder, not the least of which is the impact of being "touched" by another human being.
Dr.M
Dear Dr. Matia,
I've missed hearing from you. In all honesty, not for just "information" but for that human connection that used to fill the pages of this site; that incredible sense of not only knowledge, but warmth and caring that gave me the courage to take that huge leap of faith and find my way to your clinic. It has saddened me that this site has become so quiet -not just by you, but by patients finding their way to private Face Book pages.
It never entered my head that you might fear that you were redundant. I think that redundancy, not only in information, but especially in words of encouragement, is not only comforting to children, but to those who are ill and scared.
It will be my hope to hear more from you; the incredible human being and the doctor that I know in my heart that you are. I would also imagine that for those that are patients of your husband, the same thing might also hold true.