Practice Background & Philosophy

  • In existence more than 25 years

  • Initially a general internal medicine and preventive medicine practice, but increasingly a specialty practice in preventive and lifestyle medicine

  • The founder (Henry D. Childs, MD) came to medicine 10 years later than usual, by a different pathway from that of most physicians:

    • Fine Arts major in college, from an artistic family, resulting in a personal concept that every patient is a work of art and should be treated that way

    • New England Yankee, with innate belief in taking good care of good equipment and hatred of waste, especially waste of human potential (e.g. by lousy lifestyles)

    • Ten years experience of the real world (5 yrs in USAF, 5 yrs running two businesses before medical training) gave a solid picture of what life is like for real people

  • Even in training, it was clear that much of the disease and trouble we were seeing shouldn't have been happening and was often preventable. From the outset, this practice began to look thoughtfully at patients' behavior patterns and lifestyle habits, since imbalances here bring on so many of the problems which the medical system eventually has to deal with. Internal medicine training is by and large diagnosis and treatment of adult disease; here we have gone far beyond this and have been a pioneering practice in analysis and retraining of lifestyle habits, the major emphasis being achievement and maintenance of optimal health and fitness of all kinds

  • The two key concepts which drive the lifestyle medicine specialty side of this practice are: three main areas in life for all of us (job, home, personal); and need to be in good balance between and within all three

  • Our name (Health Investment Associates) was chosen to dramatize the fact that the two most important investments we can have in life are NOT the financial types we're all taught, but are in fact physical and emotional health, without which the most massive financial assets are worthless! We are investment counselors here, taking patients through their 'health portfolios and making recommendations, following progress and training, in exactly the same manner a financial counselor would do, but with more reliable outcomes than economic advisors can guarantee

  • Lifestyle balance assessment: our key computer-assisted analysis of time balance between the three major areas, and balance within each area, as measured by presence or absence of a number of 'universals' everybody needs to be optimally fit and healthy, but most people either don't have at all, or only minimally

  • Here we apply the concept of fitness not only to physical fitness, but also to emotional, intellectual, artistic, spiritual, economic, and marital fitness, among others (trying to work with ALL the important areas which make people tick, which is actually the guiding principle behind TRUE holistic medicine)

  • As a result of the above philosophy and experience, we have trained well over 5000 adults in full aerobic exercise programs, balanced nutrition (with the help of Lorraine Love, RD, a superb clinical and sports nutritionist, also available at http://www.yourdietitian.com), stress management, job and personal performance improvement, techniques for protecting marriages, et al

  • Humans should ideally receive more than just medical advice and pills from their physicians - we all need in our lives love, laughter, music, continuing education, spirituality and human fellowship, good reading habits, good friends, at least a few hobbies or involvements, and more. Here we prescribe all of the above, sometimes literally on a prescription pad!

  • We deplore our society's drift into unwillingness to assume adequate personal responsibility for our choices and actions/inactions ('somebody else do it', 'let the government handle it', 'insurance ought to pay for it all', etc.) and we are in effect personal responsibility trainers in areas where many people have never been taught they belong

  • For all the above reasons, the initial complete medical evaluation portion usually takes at least 2 1/2 hours (and annuals 1 1/2 to 2 hours) to complete; all who move on to one of our private and very in depth Lifestyle Review options receive another 6-8 hours of time devoted to intensive and customized lifestyle analysis and retraining in multiple areas

  • Probably the best bottom line for all this is that being fit and healthy in all important lifestyle areas is FUN, and being unfit and unhealthy is definitely NOT (especially for those who know the difference and have a basis of comparison). We very much enjoy coaching, training, educating and in other ways helping our patients and clients develop their potentials for better lifestyle balance and health. We work together as partners rather than the standard (and sometimes adversarial) doctor-patient mode, get to know each other well in the process, and mutual friendship often develops

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