Opinion: Why Tucson could help lead a national shift toward whole-person care

In an exam room at a clinic on the corner of Sunrise Drive and Kolb Road, I sat across from a patient for a consult. She had a double-sided, handwritten list of symptoms and conditions and a Ziploc bag full of prescriptions. After we made our introductions, I wheeled my stool over to her and asked my opening question: “What matters most to you?”

She started to read off her list of diagnoses, stopping herself midway through the third one to ask, “Did you say, ‘What’s the matter with me?’ or ‘What matters to me?’”

I showed her the notes I had reviewed before she arrived. It’s a small gesture, but it signals that we’re in this together. We would talk about her conditions and prescriptions, of course. I was just as interested in what gave her life meaning outside the four walls of our clinic. She told me her granddaughter gave her life meaning. Her health mattered because she wanted to spend as much time with her as possible.

After spending 30 minutes getting to know her better, we developed a plan that built on her existing treatment. It included a series of low-impact Qigong routines found on YouTube, a simple breathwork practice, a connection to a community acupuncture clinic, a recipe for a health tonic, and a referral to a dietitian covered by her insurance. Within months, she was able to cross several symptoms off her list and was taking regular walks with her granddaughter, goals she had set for herself.

At a follow-up visit, she told me she felt better. She was far from cured, but she also shared that she had been looking for this kind of care her whole life. She just didn't know what to call it or how to find it.

Most of my patients find me by word of mouth. They aren’t at first familiar with terms like integrative, lifestyle, functional, preventive or naturopathic medicine. My colleagues and I have spent years parsing the distinctions in research papers and at medical conferences, even on social media, each of us fluent in the dialect of our own discipline. Still, for those seeking this kind of care, the language remains elusive, something you feel more than you can define.

“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world,” the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote. This line prompted an idea. If language can define limits, it can also expand opportunities. What could leaders in medicine, across clinical approaches to whole-person care, accomplish if we shared the same language?

In October, with support from the Ardmore Institute of Health, the University of Arizona Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine brought leaders from more than 35 national healthcare organizations to Tucson to find the answer.

Leaders in integrative, lifestyle, preventive, functional and naturopathic medicine were joined by representatives from the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Pharmacists Association, the National Institutes of Health and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, along with tribal health experts from the university.

We agreed that whole-person care describes much of what our fields share. But agreement on language is only a beginning. Patients should not have to navigate the distinctions between our disciplines to find care that considers their whole lives. It is our responsibility to make that care easier to recognize, access and expect.

The National Academies’ 2023 report Achieving Whole Health describes how health systems can connect team-based medical care with community programs and social services. Physicians who contributed to the VA’s Whole Health approach showed us how that can work in the real world. Care starts with what matters to veterans. Their goals guide treatment, and they are equipped with resources and support designed to empower the patient.

Certainly, one meeting can't transform how healthcare is delivered. There is work to be done across the healthcare system, from how practitioners are trained to how care is paid for. The Tucson convening offered a starting point. A white paper and communications toolkit planned for 2027 will help organizations establish a shared understanding of whole-person care and communicate its value. We are also exploring how to sustain this collaboration, bringing together organizations with the influence to change how medicine is taught and practiced.

As these initiatives take shape, they reinforce something that can be difficult to hold on to in healthcare: hope. My mentor, Dr. Andrew Weil, a longtime Tucsonan, has spent decades making more room for health and healing in medicine. Our center has built on that work for over 30 years. This is the care people look for when they have chronic conditions or pain that defies explanation. It’s the care I want for my own kids, and the care I searched for when my mom faced Alzheimer’s. It is the medicine I practice as my purpose.

Now, with leaders from across medicine working together, the task is to keep going until whole-person care becomes something patients can expect, rather than something they spend years searching for. Through the University of Arizona Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine, Tucson is helping lead that work, shaping a future of healthcare that reaches well beyond Arizona.