H O W I T A L L B E G A N
Integrative Family Medicine of IowaMedicine is a business. On one level, we all know that, but even while we acknowledge that medical practices and providers need to make money, there’s a lot more at stake. As patients, we want to trust our providers because we are, quite literally, betting our lives on their advice. We also want to be treated with dignity, not restricted by either prejudice or profitability. |
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That’s what brought Sarah Lee, a Nurse Practitioner with experience in several specialities who wanted more for her patients than traditional practice offered, together with Kara Dobelis Pohren, a Nurse Practitioner with critical care experience who endured her own inefficiently addressed heath challenges, with a common idea. They envisioned a medical-complementary, or integrative, medical practice that would provide care employing all of the techniques, both of traditional medicine and medical techniques considered ‘natural’, into one place. They also wanted a practice where they could spend time listening to their patients, where patients were never shamed or shunned. As nurses, they grew into their careers by building relationships with patients and wanted to freely exercise those talents. |
So they built Integrative Family Medicine, where their practice is autonomous, that is, free of medical big-business intervention. Their practice is also transparent and communicative. Appointments are twice as long and patients know up front what they will pay. It is also, as their name proclaims, integrative, including wellness, nutrition, weight management, mental health, IV and electro-therapy, sexual health, and health coaching. Their process approaches a problem with “Yes, and...” rather than “No, but.”
In the end, IFM treats people, not conditions. And was the Des Moines community waiting for them? Indeed they were. Their enthusiastic welcome and subsequent growth speaks for itself.
In the end, IFM treats people, not conditions. And was the Des Moines community waiting for them? Indeed they were. Their enthusiastic welcome and subsequent growth speaks for itself.
