We recently connected with Juliann Abecassis-Walsh and have shared our conversation below.
Juliann, thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts with us today. We’re excited to dive into your story and your work, but first let’s start with a broader topic that might be stopping many of our readers from pursuing their dreams – haters, nay-sayers, etc. How have you managed to persist despite haters and nay-sayers that inevitably follow folks who are doing something unique, special or off the beaten path?
You need a tough skin if you’re going to be a a healthcare provider in the holistic and/or Traditional Chinese Medicine realm. A lot of people will try to discredit your education and your clinical experience. They’ll say things like “you’re not a real doctor” or “this isn’t scientifically validated”. It’s important to remember two things:
1. The United States spends more on health care than any other first world country and has some of the worst health outcomes, highest rates of deaths from avoidable or treatable causes, has some of the highest rates of maternal and infant death, shorter life expectancies and highest rates of people with multiple chronic diseases, comparatively. It’s very much a USA view that our medicine is the best medical system in the world, but when you compare us to other first world countries – the stats do not agree. Additionally, as so many nay-sayers in the USA try to discredit holistic medicine, other first world countries incorporate those holistic modalities without controversy. Luckily, we are starting to see some implementation and integration of holistic modalities within many prestigious medical systems in our country, despite how many nay-sayers argue invalidity.
2. My patient outcomes speak for themselves. I don’t need to prove to nay-sayers that what I do is valid, holds an important space in the healthcare field or is worthy of recognition. I see the results myself, as do my patients – and that is all that matters to me. It’s important to understand that by the time most of my patients have found me, they’ve typically exhausted all medical avenues and are desperate. My typical patient is not super “crunchy” or “hippie” or “anti-modern medicine”, they’re sick and they’ve been failed by a broken system – or they are looking for adjunctive therapies to support their western medicine treatment plans to create a more wholistic approach to their care.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
At my practice, Balanced Healing of Jacksonville, I work with patients and support them in their wellness and healing journeys. For some, this may look like trying to determine the root cause to chronic illnesses and reduce symptoms – for others, it’s really about optimizing their health to try and prevent disease states.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
In this field you have to really love research. No two cases are alike so having strong research skills has allowed me to understand my toughest cases better, instead of just relying on the education provided to me in my medical program. That’s what differentiates a decent provider from a great provider, one who is willing to continuing their education outside of school to better their patient outcomes.
You also need to understand that in medicine it’s important to have empathy, but also boundaries. Without both, you’ll find yourself taking on the emotional load from your patients and you’ll burn yourself out quickly.
Lastly it’s crucial to realize that in medicine that “healing rests in the patient, you are simply a facilitator”. That mind set has kept me afloat on my most stressful days.
Who is your ideal client or what sort of characteristics would make someone an ideal client for you?
My ideal client (patient) would be someone who is motivated to make the necessary changes to better support their health outcomes. Those who are unwilling to make those changes are asking for a miracle that I couldn’t deliver upon. So much of health is our daily habits and exposures, nutrition and diet, stress levels, sleep hygiene. Those things are equally as important as lab tests and other health-related modalities.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://balancedhealingofjacksonville.com/
- Instagram: http://instagram.com/healingofjax/
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@balancedhealing
Image Credits
Photos by Lunic Visuals
