The Best of Both Worlds

Jamé Heskett, an American Board-certified family physician, has always loved science. As a student at the George Washington School of Medicine in DC, she viewed medicine as the "ultimate educational challenge." So she was surprised when, in the mid-1990s, during her family medicine residency at a clinic in Seattle, Washington, she found herself questioning traditional medicine. "I was continually prescribing things that weren't effective or that people wouldn't take because of the side effects," she says. "And I wanted to focus on keeping people healthy, not just treating them when they were sick. So I started looking into alternative medicine."

Heskett's interest became more personal after a car accident left her with chronic shoulder pain. She first went to a series of doctors, who told her that she was a "pill seeker" and couldn't have pain because nothing showed up on her MRI. Then, finally, she saw a neurologist who believed she had pain and prescribed biofeedback and therapy.

Treating Women One-on-One

Heskett began to visualize a practice that would blend alternative and Western treatments, and allow her to follow patients from start to finish – a center that clients could visit regularly, sick or well, and get the benefits of a health retreat. In May 2001, Heskett, now 33, founded WellPath, a New York City holistic wellness center for women, which integrates traditional and alternative medicine with therapeutic spa services, fitness facilities, counseling, and educational seminars. "Women experience stresses that men don't. We work and nurture and that leads to overload. But when women are well, then their families are well, and then the people around their families are well."

Her clients are women from every socioeconomic group and of every age: energetic career women, first-time pregnant women, and stay-at-home mothers. Some are locals, but others come from the neighboring states of New Jersey and Connecticut, even as far as 50 miles (80 kilometers) away. Heskett gets most of her clients by word of mouth.

Heskett gives each client an initial two-hour consultation that includes a medical examination, a full history, and a discussion about the client's daily and long-term stresses, as well as the client's health philosophy. Her goal is to help each client's body heal itself, so she coaches the women in the ways to keep them healthy. But she never insists that someone buy into alternative medicine. "One person may get a homeopathic treatment, another antibiotics, and another may choose to watch and wait," says Heskett, who designs programs to fit each patient. "People want guidance but they also want to participate in the choices."

WellPath's six-person staff includes Heskett, two massage therapists, a nurse who is also an aesthetician, an office manager who doubles as a holistic pharmacist, an acupuncturist, and a health associate trained in holistic techniques. Together, they offer a range of traditional and alternative therapies. These include acupuncture, massage, nutritional counseling, skin care, lymphatic treatments for circulation and muscular pain, laser hair removal, psychological counseling, meditation, yoga, Pilates, and tai chi. Heskett imagines expanding to no more than 20 employees: "I have no aspiration to franchise or become huge. Every time someone comes in, I want her to get what she deserves, not a shuttling in and out."

"We Don't Know What This Is"

Heskett knows something about shuttling. She saw 50 patients per day during her Seattle residency. (She sees only seven per day now.) And at night she studied homeopathy – a form of practice that treats illness through minute doses of remedies that in larger quantity would produce symptoms of the illness. "When I first heard about homeopathy, I rolled my eyes," she admits. "But then I saw that homeopathy offered alternatives when Western medicine didn't work and that the remedies had no side effects. I started using them and all I saw were positive results."

Heskett knows that many in the medical community consider homeopathy to be quackery. She says of her work in Seattle, "I had a lot of Hispanic patients who were receptive to homeopathic remedies," says Heskett. "But my colleagues would see the remedy on the patient's chart and say, 'We don't know what this is or how to deal with it. Don't do this here.'" Although Heskett shared literature on alternative remedies and developed protocols about how to use them, her colleagues' skepticism continued, and Heskett's residency status suffered. "I went from being the star resident to being someone to 'watch out for.' One of my teachers even said, 'You had better be prepared to fail.'"

But her colleagues' resistance only solidified Heskett's dream of a different kind of practice. "I thought, 'If I fail, at least I will have followed what I believe in.'" Heskett says she feels less like a pioneer than a doctor "extra committed to making people healthier."

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