Salus June 4, 2025

In attendance at the June 4th, 2025 session of the Salus Health Care Forum were Mitch Applegate, Molly Baskette, William Bergquist, Jerome Fish, Bill Gillanders, Gay Teurman, and Jack Westfall.   The Trigger topic for this thirteenth Salus Forum was provided by Gay Teurman, who offered insights regarding operations of the gut in human neurobiology, and introduced an intriguing parallel between the human gut and the functioning of contemporary American healthcare.

Following is the narrative based on the June 4 forum:

Gay

About three months ago, we had a conversation, in a nutshell, about the patient being the health care system. And it got me thinking about how I often become the final step when I look at people that I am attempting to help. They’ve seen medicine, they’ve seen holistic care, they’ve seen both. They’ve been around the gamut, and nothing that they’ve been incorporating is working. Often, nobody’s looking at their gut or their constitution based on all things, biological, mental, and neurobiological challenges.

So, as we were talking about the patient being the health care system, I got to thinking: what is the gut of the health care system? Why aren’t we looking at that nexus as a means of shifting how we all integrate what we all purport that we want to do—which is collaborate more and have a care system that’s more a wellness care system than a medical management system. Why is it all so fragmented? Why are so many of us fragmented?

I don’t know if this is true in all of California; however, living in one of the largest counties in this state, I still have difficulty with integrating referrals back and forth with medical community docs, neurologists, and medical professionals. I can’t even have them understand how what I could do might serve the patient. So, as a practical person, I don’t live in possibility very long. I go to: well, how do we make that happen?

As we were thinking about the health care system and shifting it as the patient, I got to thinking: What’s going on in the patient’s gut? Is it appropriate that I ask this question, because the gut is where I focus from a biological perspective? I thought it would be interesting to engage a dialogue about what that model would look like if we are attempting to shift practical application, the way that we look at a patient, or the way that we treat a patient. Any of those possibilities. So that’s how I landed on this topic.