This book follows Dr Hopkins in her journey from physician to healer. After spending the first 20 years of her career providing excellent diagnostic acumen, she realized that the drugs had limited longterm efficacy. As a rheumatologist, challenging patients filled her day however her scientific mind started to look at why so many people were suffering. why in a country of such wealth people were so sick. The data started supporting what she was seeing everyday. Chronically ill patients, autoimmune diseases increasing, and patients spending much of their life and resources trying to get better. In 1988, a pregnancy was complicated by severe Spina Bifida. After losing the child, she began her journey into the land of wellness without drugs. How could the medical community in 1988 not know about the importance of folic acid, a simple vitamin easily accessible. Were our foods no longer adequate sources of nutrition. Why was knowledge of any vitamin or mineral not part of the armamentarium used to bridge people to wellness. Were we just relying on a corrupted food change, watching morbid obesity in our country reach 36%, and liver disease start affecting our adolescent population with many of them having adult diseases in their teen years. Liver transplants from fatty liver, gallbladder disease and type 2 diabetes now plague our population under the age of 20. Chronic diseases that reflect our diet and life styles will be over 50% in the next decade. Like global warming, we can no longer afford to practice medicine the old way, namely, if you have a symptom I have a drug that will cover up that symptom. We must now teach our young physicians to question WHY would anyone have these symptoms. This is my journey

This book is a testimony to all the patients in my practice who have have joined me on this journey. We follow the journey of our patients as we introduce the concept of shedding the burden of disease and welcome the experience of wellness. The genius of wellness is the call to all patients to find the gift of the universe in presenting a path to health. We have embraced the magic of herbal medicine and how Mother Nature has supplied us with a road map for dealing with many chronic diseases. Now we must combat the burden of an industrialized food supply while we pay for health insurance that only cares for us in sickness not in health. How did we get here?

In 1916, just over 100 years ago, the Flexnor report demanded the closing of most medical schools in the country. The US was facing a world war, starvation and the beginning of the flu season. Infections such has small pox, cholera, the plague, measles, influenza consumed the attention of the medical community. Scientific method was the cornerstone of learning in Paris and Germany. In order to bring our standards up to those in Europe, all naturopathic schools were closed in the USA. Simon FLexnor, MD felt that the USA should take the lead in the world for solving these problems. With the Hopkins University taking the lead and under the direction of  Dr John Welsh, they established the blueprint for research to develop vaccines and pharmacological medications. The AMA and the Rockfeller family backed the change from naturopathy to allopathy. Now a century later, we need a new paradigm to address the pandemic of chronic disease and novel viruses that plague people with access to food challenges, clean water, waste management and the need for more vaccines. Why is everyone so sick? The pandemic of 2020 has highlighted the dire health of so many in the USA with obesity rates at 40% and nutrient deficiencies such as Vitamin D.  It is time that the educators restructure the medical school curriculum to introduce nutrition and lifestyle medicine into the curriculum. Like global warming, we can no longer wait for change. We are the change.