Dr Amy Gajjar

Health is a unity of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being. It is vital to nurture all of these different aspects to be your best self and live your best life in every way. Working in London as a Family Physician was both challenging and frustrating, as much of the workload involved prescribing medications within a busy clinic setting. I remember listening to an interview with Dr. Deepak Chopra, and it resonated with me when he said that, during his days in hospital medicine, he felt like a “legal drug pusher.” Reflecting on the Greek definition of a physician – “a person who facilitates the body’s own self-healing abilities” – I certainly did not feel like a good physician. Moving to Sydney marked a significant turning point in my medical practice. Here, I encountered Functional Medicine, which essentially focuses on identifying the underlying causes of symptoms within a holistic framework, rather than merely using medication to treat the symptoms. This concept is not necessarily new; the perspective of treating the whole person is central to many traditional health systems, such as Ayurveda.