CONNECTIONS Dr Keith Sehnert to Dr Victor Youcha
My goodness, the photo of Dr Victor in the Northwestern School Newletter sent to me by Deborah Aurianivar Teacher of Acupuncture in Arizona and a grad of NW Schools triggered a lot of memories. Spirit is encouraging me to tell my story. This is my truth.
I first met Dr Victor Youcha DC in 1991, when I visited Dr Keith Sehnert MD, at his office in St Louis Park for a referral for my continued severe low back pain, that I self diagnosed as "sciatica". I had no health insurance at the time and was working part time at Eagle Medical, an integrative practice led by Dr Milton Seifert I met through my Bush Clinical Fellowship. He was modeling a patient education process and had a community advisory board at that time to witness his practice style.
I remember Victor during that visit, evaluating me as a holistic chiropractor employing motion palpation and being very conscious of integrating his work with MD's. He tried acupuncture on me, my first time ever being needled, and then insisting I get an MRI scan right away. I was hesitant as I knew the cost would be high, like in the thousands, and I guess the power of prayer, I was learning in recovery and my growing understanding of D/Lakota prayer ceremonies, the power of prayer and intention. I stayed below the radar, like in 12 step recovery, being anonymous. honoring the practices of Lakota traditional folks, who kept the ceremonies alive during the times of religious and cultural persecution from the late 1800's when the Lakota were forced onto reservations by the military. The long knives, Mila Hanska!
Healers like Grandpa Frank Fools Crow, whom I was led to be with in his trailer home in November of 1989 when his spirit passed, and how I was led to meet other traditional healers over the years.
Anyway, having participated in my first sun dance over the summer of 1991, having given tobacco, chanli to Joe Eagle Elk, the Lakota medicine man, to dance in 1990. I felt more open to talk to healers like Victor Youcha, who soon became a friend of mine on a personal level. Regarding Joe, I am now re-reading his Biography -Autobiography the price of a gift, 2000 U of Nebraska Press - http://nativeauthors.com/index.php?productID=1504 - Great to look back as I flash back to many of the people who contributed to the story. People like Albert White Hat Sr and Manfred Kazenmeier and Ute Gentner of Stuttgartt Deutschland who are still my friends.
My gradual opening to Earth Centered Practices- from my 12 step traditions, Wichasha Ska Inipi.
Perhaps this affected my growing assertiveness and compassion, as when I walked in the clinic nearby by in the cities with the referral from Victor Youcha DC, I said something like "I know you won't believe this, I am a doctor and have no health insurance at this time."Well, the guy in charge remembered me from med school and said, don't worry, this one will be on the house" I was dumbfounded and grateful and remember the pain fitting into the small tunnel of the big machine, and just praying and getting centered in my body. That was in the fall of 1991. I know I interviewed several surgeons, MD's of various experience and reputation, while limping around the Cities and finally decided on a surgeon at Abbott Northwestern, who had done a procedure on one of the nurses at Eagle Medical. Odd I don't remember his exact name and it began with "S" and he had an office across the street from the hospital. I talked about repayment and was hoping I could work some of it off and the hospital was not open to it at the time. I remember praying for him and the staff and that the MRI showed a 1 1/2 cm extruded disc that impacted my L sciatic nerve causing a lot of shooting pain and reduced muscle function at the time. I have a scar for what I now call my L5 S1, hemi discectomy. I really remember flashing back to all the times I had neglected and abused my body, as an adrenalin addict and co dependent, playing basketball in high school and college. I really did not care for competitive sports at all AND somehow I thought in my "stinking thinking that somehow "people would like me more" if I played basketball. Crazy thinking as I see now. In the perspective of all the arthritis in professional athletes my age. When asked the never ending daily questions "how tall are you? AND did you play basketball?", I now know to respond "Karem Abdul Jabbar and I are the same age, he is a millionaire and I still have my knees!" I don't get the interest in professional sports at all. With all the head injuries, concussions in football players and the drugs and all, I am so glad I continue to take care of myself, the only human being I can really change. Modeling behavior in a good way, seems so much more simple and sober. My daily adage, EASY DOES IT, on so many levels, works for me!
He also had a health educator familiar with addictive systems as I recall. I just found a current line, at least from the year 2000 about doctor entrepreneurs
Physicians Elect to Go their own Way
Doctors are putting an old face on health-care delivery
http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2000/04/17/focus3.html?page=all
I see Dr Milton has been continuing to practice, I called him "Uncle Milt" at the time I practiced with him in the early 90's, and see he alluded to me as a physician partner in the past below! from the article by Kathy Stone in 2000 Minneapolis St Paul Business Journal.
"In his father's footsteps
"I'm the chief and only eagle," joked Dr. Milton Seifert, who practices primary care medicine from the Eagle Medical Clinic in Excelsior, with support from a physician's assistant (PA) and an affiliation with an on-site mental health counselor.
He's had four different physician partners over the years, including a brother with whom he had a cooperative arrangement but who had a separate practice in the same building. Seifert said it is hard to retain partners when they can gain better compensation elsewhere."
"Managed care practices over the last 50 years have tried to do health care as if relationships didn't matter and self-care didn't matter," Seifert said. He said HMOs won't be able to sustain themselves much longer because they are "doing care without caring." If you don't know people, it's hard to care about them, Seifert said."
Education as a Wellness Doctor - Dr Keith and other Doctor Authors of the Time
Keith was a resource to build my growing network of connections for holistic health practitioners for me at the time, when I worked for a series of Universities and Colleges. UMD and St Scholastica 1975-77, St Cloud State University 1978 - 83. Middlebury College VT Summer 1984. I was reading a lot about other wellness doctors and also met with Dr Tom Ferguson in San Francisco who lectured at the University of San Francisco Medical School just off the panhandle of the Park there. I remember he lived near Pt Reyes Marin County. Also I visited a Doctor John Travis there too as I was a health and wellness educator in my practice as a UMD Student Health Physician in 1975-77 and at St Cloud State University in 1978-1983. I remember during those times as a student health doctor, visiting Dr Bill Hettler MD at U of Wisconsin Stevens Point as I developed the computer based Health Risk Appraisal at St Cloud State University with Randy Kolb programming our tool, to direct students into thinking about Awareness of Lifestyles when they came to our Student Health Service on the ground floor of Case-Hill Dorm on Campus. We called it the Life Style Awareness Program back then. I remember attending conferences on Prospective Medicine Back then, one at the Don Cesar Hotel an iconic building in St Petersberg FL. When I googled Prospective Medicine, I just found a like to Dr Bill, so here he is! Now a Wellness Health Educator On Line
www.hettler.com/Home/index.html
After completing my internship at St Luke's Hospital in Duluth, I began teaching as an associate professor of Biology at The College of St Scholastica , focusing on teaching Community Health Science and Pathophysiology for Nursing and PT Students there. Happily Sue and I, who had met at the Botany Dept at the U of Minnesota, Minneapolis, in the office of Don Lawrence PhD, co taught a Field Botany Class at Scholastica one summer in the 70's, that was modeled after the class Don taught and Sue was a student in as I was his TA for two years.
Bush Clinical Fellowship and Holistic Health 1983-86
I received a Bush Clinical Fellowship in 1983, under the mentorship of Dr John Wempner of Waconia MN, who supported me to explore Holistic Medicine and Group Education, and Addiction Recovery at a deeper level. He also was a pioneer in using computers in the medical education practice. I remember visiting his home on the lake in Waconia during that time and feeling very welcome as I was stepping into more leadership as a board certified family doctor who had an emphasis in preventive medicine and group family dynamics. During this time, I trained as a Living Process Facilitator with Anne Wilson Schaef doing intensives internationally as I worked my Al Anon program, as a recovering co dependent and relationship addict. Also attended a program for doctors at the Menniger Clinic in Topeka Kansas where I learned about the integration of mental health in a holitic model, the same year, 1984 or 1985 I heard Robert Bly MN Poet, speak at the Minnesota Men's Conference at Hamline University who later would led the Men's Movement with his publication of Iron John, that influenced the development of the New Warrior Adventure Training started in Wisconsin by Rich Tosi, Bill Kauth, and Ron Herring who created a weekend training for men, a modern form of initiation that has attracted many men throughout the work to date, over 40,000 initiates on several continents.
http://mankindproject.org/
Dr Keith as a mentor
Dr Keith and I connected back in the 1970's and had become friends and I visited his home and basement where he wrote his books and articles next to the Rose Garden off of Lake Harriet in South Minneapolis a few times. I think his wife's name was Bonnie. And it has been a while! I am learning now that history is left to be told by those of us who "write about it" so, this blog is jogging my memory. I remember Keith being calm and twinkle in his eye, and considered him as a great mentor in health education and empowerment for his patients, while being a trained MD.
Here is a link with a photo that honors Keith and see the twinkle in his eye here!
http://keithwsehnert.tripod.com/index.html
Keith was not much into the "power over" model of the "M-Diety", where people often, in the BC era "before computers", really looked to us MD's as the high priest of health. Really dis-ease care specialists. Over the years I learned that I had to label a patient as "sick" create a diagnosis to get paid, so my requirement to be controlling as an MD, entwined me with the insurance companies, who, in my humble opinion, over the years, took the power from doctors (follow the money!!!). I remember my dad, Paul H Weaver MD, doing houses into the 1960's call to serve patients in their homes where they lived, where he could see the results face to face of life style choices in the context of their families. (house calls anyone). When working for Group Health in St Cloud, as a contract doctor in the late 70's and early 80's I did see a few patients in their homes and what fun, when walking down the street to hear from a little girl "hey you are the doctor that come to our house and looked in my ears!"
Noticing the Medical Disease Model System is much like an addictive system with Power Differentials Wellness Education Empowers Folks AKA "consumers" to Learn to Negotiate as Equals!
Later, I was forced to see all my patients in the clinic for insurance reasons and "doc in the box" slowly became the standard of care! Like many addictions, cunning baffling and powerful. The Disease management system of "managed care" seems like here to stay unless there are continued shifts of awareness and folks vote with their money!. All the more reason to stay healthy and make choices and learn the best practices of Chiropractic, Community Acupuncture, Naturopathy, Body Work, Electrodermal Testing, etc, that are now in the "marketplace". It is not just alternative or functional or integrative, it is making choices, with our money and even our feet!
Just notice all the choices! Also noticing the money stuff, difficult to negotiate paying, when the co pays are embedded in overall costs. I learned this navigating my mom, through the system the last 25 years of her life, after my father, Paul H Weaver MD, died in January of 1982. Calling the business office to see the payment options I learned to ask upfront, how the visit was being coded! The procedure code plus the diagnosis code is how the costs of each visit are created.
Procedure Codes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedure_codes
Diagnosis Codes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnosis_codes
the doctor can choose is based on the minutes of service, the complexity of the visit and the diagnosis code. Like voting, where it is not who votes, its who counts the votes that leads to an accurate measure of one reality, the medical industrial complex as I know it in America at least at this time.: It is who labels the diagnosis and determines how much time is spent and the kind of visit and procedure done, is the money vote and cost for us all. So next time ask the doctor directly the cost and find out how much they are aware of money in the system.....:-)
The Definition of Health?
Health is sometimes defined, not as an absence of diagnosable dis-ease, rather as a balance of our immune systems and how to take care of ourselves in a balance way. Actually I know now, in retrospect, how the drug companies influenced my education so much at the U of M, from 1969 -74, that it was not whether I prescribed a pill or drug for a patient, it was just which one! Patients were being advertised to more and more by TV and drug adds that most visited were more of a drug deal than listening and learning from the powerful stories and the context of the illness within a family system. Anyway, I guess, I was a slow learner!
When the adds for the "purple pill" were on TV, it finally dawned on me how I was a pawn of big Pharma, and got pulled into being a drug dealer myself, just a legal one! (Good thing I had Al Anon as a support system and later other venues of spirituality and recovery) I digress..... Happy I was led to retire in 1998, at age 50, turning in my license on Feb 14, Valentines Day, and have not been a target for drug seekers since! And no mal practice insurance and I sleep much better at night! No Li-ability Insurance, and now I can tell the whole truth as an educator and business development specialist, and the end of being "a doc in the box", was over for me.
Keith a comfort during my transition into new work and relocating!
When I was contemplating leaving allopathic practice in 1997, Keith gracefully met with Susan, my wife at the time, at a corner family Vietnamese Cafe on the corner of 36th and Bryant, and was very comforting to us both, as he too had to face the Board of Medical Practice, as his health eduction practice had become under fire by the "doctors in power" at the time. I admired his courage and gentle warmth, the compassion I thought primary care doctors like us were supposed to model! So I joined Keith, back then in his candidiasis and nutrition practice in the Excelsior Ave location in the basement, in a room just beneath where Dr Youcha had his practice in 1991. I had trust in Keith to find holistic and quality practitioners, in ventures to use nutrition for recovery, at a treatment center in South Minneapolis on Hennepin and 33rd, we used high doses of Vitamin C for addicts and did another time did Chelation Therapy in a shopping mall in Bloomington with the Chelation Society protocol and later at the same clinic building on Excelsior Blvd where I met Dr Youcha for the first time, saw patients in the basement as colleagues. Keith also had a network of nurses who worked in Lutheran Churches I recall, in his vision to connect health and spirituality - and doing stress reduction in a faith based community. Quite the pioneer.
Well I have been writing this page for my blog now for a couple of hours. Amazing the words triggered by the memory of meeting Dr Victor in St Louis Park MN, in 1991, over 20 years ago.
HONORING DR JACK and LINDA YOUCHA now living in Mexico.
Hola tehanshi Victor Jack and hankashi Linda
Via con Dio! Mucho Gusto!
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