Health Careers Today, Not Just Doctors and Nurses

By Deborah Diettner

When I was a child, health careers basically consisted of doctors and nurses. There really wasn’t much else thought about as a health career except for the rare mention of a chiropractor.

My aunt was a nurse and her husband, a chiropractor. That was my initiation into a non-traditional health career.

I was indeed fascinated, but decided to follow along in my aunt’s footsteps. I first became a nurse followed by education as a family nurse practitioner. One of my professors was from Europe and discussed a variety of other interesting health perspectives.

Those discussions led to my further delving into herbology, homeopathy, ayurveda, nutrition, acupuncture, reiki, therapeutic touch, cranial sacral therapy, yoga and many other therapies.

And…I’m still on a learning path as exploration continues.

• Energy medicine aids in the promotion of health and healing of the body. The energy field of the body consists of different frequencies, vibrations, and electromagnetic fields.

• Reiki, a subtle form of energy therapy, was developed by Mikao Usui in the early 1900s in Japan. Usui formed a school and taught numerous students, one being Hawayo Takata who returned to her home in Hawaii to practice and teach. She is credited for introducing Reiki to the Western World.

There are a variety of energy medicine practitioners today using

various techniques to guide the body’s energy field. Techniques may consist of touch, sound, light, or other forms of energy promoting physical, emotional, and spiritual healing.

Today Reiki is used in a variety of settings from private practices to in-hospital care providing positive help for many conditions such as pain (both acute and chronic), mental health conditions (anxiety and depression), stress reduction and relaxation, and other health issues allowing anyone to tap into an unlimited supply of “life force energy.”

Improving health and enhancing the quality of life, Reiki treats the whole person, body, mind, emotion and spirit. The beneficial effects of Reiki include but are not limited to calmness, security, and well-being. This simple and natural method of healing is safe and can benefit everyone.

• The ayurvedic medical system goes back more than 3,000 years. Ayurveda incorporates nature and the insurmountable numbers of plants as a basis for healing. The roots of Ayurveda are believed to be from early Indian (Hindu) philosophy made up of the elements of the earth, fire, water and air. Ayurveda has been utilized for both disease prevention and treatment therefore considered a complete system of medicine, and can be used in combination with traditional biomedicine to support the whole person. Ayurvedic herbs are used to support detoxification and consist of but not limited to: Turmeric, Neem, Rhubarb