Searching For The Cause, Optimizing Healthspan
A Harvard study showed that patients were most satisfied with their care when their doctors looked for the cause of their illness. This is a complex thing. It involves many layers which as naturopaths we understand, but it’s still challenging. We all have different approaches and this is my approach. I’ll talk about my approach for neurological diseases like insomnia and headaches, gastrointestinal problems like IBS and GERD, chronic infections like sinusitis, otitis, and UTIs, and inflammatory issues like eczema. So this short little expose will be an explanation of what I do with patients. Of course it’s different with every person I see (personalized medicine) and of course everybody responds differently. I have success and I have what I would call failures, but maybe we could say we’re just not there yet. But the basics are there: real food, love, nutrients, toxins, exercise, trauma, infections…we need to help people embrace them.
So how do we create a healthy long health span for ourselves and our patients? This is the question I will work to answer.
Dr. Satya Ambrose ND, LAc is a well-loved leading elder of the holistic health movement in the US and abroad. As a healer, educator, public speaker, and researcher, she has spent the past 50 years developing and practicing a highly effective blend of personalized naturopathic functional medicine that includes Chinese medicine and acupuncture. Many local conventional doctors and specialists refer to her because of her success in complex chronic disease that has essentially failed all treatments. She and her husband own 24-acre Starfire Farm in Damascus, Oregon where they live with her three children and three grandchildren. Dr. Ambrose is steadfast that the most effective medicine of all is love and laughter.
Current Practice
Dr. Ambrose opened Sunnyside Collaborative Care, LLC in 2014 to harness the power of collaboration among diverse practitioners to address complex chronic disease. She currently sees patients 3 days per week with her colleagues that include other naturopathic doctors (NDs), acupuncturists, advanced bodyworkers, counselors, a laboratory specialist. She continuously runs highly sought-after clinical preceptorships for several medical schools.
Teaching
She co-founded the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine (OCOM) in 1982, now the number one acupuncture school in the US, with 100 graduates per year. OCOM is a post-graduate academic institution that offers masters and clinical doctorate programs in Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture.
She currently teaches nutrition, biochemistry, rheumatology and pediatrics to the master’s and doctoral programs at OCOM. She also teaches Chinese medicine at the National College of Naturopathic Medicine (NCNM), and has taught in the Complementary and Alternative Medicine program at Oregon Health and Science University, Oregon’s only academic medical center and one of the nation’s top 25 biomedical research institutions.
Dr. Ambrose frequently lectures at universities and conferences around the US, Canada and other countries on psychoneuroimmunology and interactions with endocrinology, gastroenterology and toxicology. Preparations are underway to publish her book on synthesizing diverse aspects of healing into a highly individualized synergistic approach.
With a background in psychology and biochemistry, she has taught many areas of medicine including oncology, pathology, acupuncture, medical philosophy, immunology, neurology, psychology and the emotional basis of illness, gastroenterology, infectious disease, pediatrics, genetics and women's health.
Chitari Foundation
Dr. Ambrose is president and founder of the Chitari Foundation (501c3), which aims to foster collaboration among diverse practitioners to merge the best healing practices from around the world that harness the synergy of ancient and modern healing approaches. Bringing people together for high-quality educational events is a cornerstone of Chitari’s mission. Chitari runs a popular monthly series of continuing education seminars on diverse subjects, including Chronic Pain, Detoxification, Naturopathic Oncology, and Cardiology, among others. One of Dr. Ambrose’s most popular lectures is her “Miracle Cases.”
The Chitari Foundation is currently focused on creating a healing sanctuary and retreat center to implement more intensive residential-style healing programs. The need for intensive healing programs is clear in the complex population Dr. Ambrose and her colleagues have come to specialize in. It is designed to facilitate deep healing in recalcitrant illness employing multimodal programs that include nutritional therapy, fasting, IV therapy, detoxification, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and shamanic healing.
Research
For the past 10 years, she has been involved in research on treating infections with bacteriophage, and resetting abnormal microbiomes to healthy and functional systems. She and the Chitari team are also designing a research study to compare the efficacy of a functional approach to chronic disease with standard care.
