Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 8, Issue 7, July 2004

Copyright 2004 Seattle Sun. Please feel free to use the article below in your research. Be sure to cite the Seattle Sun as your source.

Naturopathic doctor well-traveled on road to wellness

By JAMES BUSH

Since Denice Smith moved to Seattle in 1975, her focus has been on helping people get well.

"Since I've been here, I've accumulated a lot of medical hats," says Smith, a naturopathic doctor who lives in the Greenwood neighborhood and maintains a practice in the Maple Leaf area.

Over the years, Smith has worked as a massage therapist, radiology technologist, pharmacy technician and a registered nurse. She received her naturopathic training at Bastyr University.

Her goal all along has been to work directly with people to help facilitate their recovery, says Smith. This led her to nursing, where she worked as a primary care nurse. "I was interested in doing that because I looked at it as being a patient advocate," she says.

However, she resisted being pushed into the role of a supervisor or manager, and ended up leaving nursing. On the advice of her own naturopathic doctor, she decided to apply to Bastyr and began her four-year course of study there in 1987. Smith says she spread her studies out over six years, "so that I could enjoy my clinic time."\

She opened her first naturopathic practice in 1995.

But the challenge of making a living from a brand-new practice proved tough, so after a couple years Smith ended up returning to school, this time as a student in North Seattle Community College's pharmacy technician program. After obtaining her national certification, she began work as a pharmacy technician at Kindred Hospital at Northgate, an interim facility for acute patients between hospital care and transfer to a skilled nursing facility.

Although it would seem that Smith has one foot in the world of mainstream medicine and the other in the world of natural medicine, she would argue that its all the same world. Naturopaths must complete extensive studies in the basic sciences and health sciences and pass a two-day state board testing procedure. They are also trained in pharmacology in order to understand possible reactions between herbal medicines and mainstream medicines. (These risks are sometimes exacerbated when a patient doesn't tell his naturopath that he's also being treated by a medical doctor, or vice versa.)

"When one group doesn't talk to the other group, it makes it really hard," says Smith. "It would just be nice if there could be an open-arms respect for who we are."

Asked to provide a example of how treatment by a naturopath differs from that by a medical doctor, she notes that sometimes modern medicine treats symptoms rather than causes. "If someone comes to me and complains of not sleeping, not sleeping is not the problem. There could be several problems that result in not sleeping," she says. "It could be lifestyle, it could be diet, it could be their behavior pattern at home, it could be stress."

If you just hand that person a bottle of sleeping pills, they'll be able to sleep, but their root problems remain untreated, she says.

"I don't treat disease," says Smith. "I facilitate treatment with the person." For example, if a person's disease process is causing them to feel tired and depleted, she might recommend the use of herbs which strengthen the immune system and allow them to access more energy.

Naturopaths believe that your body has its own healing abilities and that people can learn behaviors that promote health and prevent disease. One method for gauging the physical effects of a person's diet is to have them keep not only a diary of what they ate, but their emotional responses throughout the day, which can show links between the two.

Her current practice is located at the Natural Health Center in Maple Leaf. Professionally, Smith uses the first name "Dei," a nickname created by Rick Fitzgibbon, her partner of 32 years.

Smith says she hopes to focus on naturopathic counseling and homeopathy, which creates natural medicines using sources from plants, minerals and animals to address the specific symptoms of the individual.

She stresses patience as an important part of the healing process. "The road to getting healthy is not just a quick run across the block," says Smith, "it's a long path."

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Denice Smith, ND, has an office at the Natural Health Center, 8401 5th Ave. NE, Suite 102; 617-1839.