Dr. Heather Overland
Naturopathic Physician
Licensed Acupuncturist
- Conferences to stay up to date on Restorative Medicine and Integrative Healthcare Topics
- Navigating Changes and Trends in Diagnosis and Treatment
- Coordinating Care with Top Local Doctors
- Promoting Wellness at the County Health Fair
- TBI, Post-Concussion Syndrome
- Hormone Balancing
- SIBO, Prevention and Treatment
- Strategies in Pain Management
- IV Therapy for Wellness
- Preventing Alzheimer’s Disease and Promoting Mental Clarity
Fall Wellness Updates
Continuing Education
After years (decades) of schooling, the last thing many of us want is to go back to school. However, continuing education is both a requirement to maintain an active license as a doctor, and part of how to stay current in the continuously developing world of medicine.
While my practice is rooted in traditional medicine and includes techniques such as acupuncture that have been used in some form for thousands of years, I feel that the practice of holistic modern medicine is rapidly changing and improving. I am quite happy for the opportunity to use the best new laboratory studies, sterile single-use supplies and diagnostic equipment that is leaps and bounds above what it was ten years ago (let alone 1,000 years ago).
One of the pleasant changes I’ve noted recently is the collaborative and truly integrative nature of many of the continuing education courses. Nowadays, many doctors and allied health professionals from differing backgrounds and seemingly different schools of thought are getting together to learn strategies and clinical updates to best help their patients. Our shared desire to provide optimal care for our patients has led DOs (Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine), MDs (Medical Doctors), and NMDs (Naturopathic Medical Doctors) like myself to get together, share our clinical experiences, and pursue continuing education focused on holistic and integrative therapeutic techniques.
Clinical Updates
I’ve focused on topics that I personally find interesting, and feel are highly pertinent to the active patients I see every day. Topics have included TBI (traumatic brain injury), integrative pain management, injury recovery, and IV therapy. One amazing thing about conferences is that I can not only refine my current practice, but I also gain the opportunity to learn about topics I may not see daily, such as SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth) and clinical applications for LDN (low-dose naltrexone) therapy.
The opportunity to take disparate clinical focuses, such as gastroenterology or pharmacology, and incorporate their nuanced understanding about specific systems into a larger understanding of how an imbalance can contribute to the progression of commonly seen symptoms and diseases is one of the awesome things about holistic medicine. We get to treat the patient as an entire person, not just component parts or systems, and we also get to learn from the expertise and in-depth understanding of specific systems to best address the whole.
Local Top Docs
I recently had the enriching experience of pursuing continuing education and connecting with my colleagues at the Montana Association of Naturopathic Physicians fall meeting. While they may not have the high numbers of Naturopathic Physicians that Washington has, Montana, Idaho and Washington all have very high-quality practitioners who are dedicated to providing excellent healthcare and improving the wellness of our local communities.
” Our shared desire to provide optimal care for our patients has led DOs, MDs, and NDs like myself to get together, share our clinical experiences, and pursue continuing education focused on holistic and integrative therapeutic techniques.”