D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
February
2009
Winning Combination
Jennifer Agosta, MD, brings her special blend of alternative modalities and traditional medical training to Silver Health Care.
Story and photos by Donna Clayton
With her long, dark-blonde hair a wavy cloud behind her, "nature girl" good looks and thin, fit frame, Dr. Jennifer Agosta might strike you as someone you'd more likely pass on a hiking trail than find wearing a lab coat, taking your vital signs and writing out a prescription. It turns out this first impression is key to understanding this doctor of internal medicine who just this fall joined the team at Silver Health Care.
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Dr. Jennifer Agosta catches a healthy,
relaxing breath of the outdoors in the arboretum outside her office at
Silver Health Care. |
A walking advertisement for a healthy lifestyle, Agosta is an MD on a mission to blend many aspects of whole health and medicine into a multi-faceted approach to health, healing and wellness.
"What I saw here, by coming to Silver Health Care, was the opportunity to establish an integrative medicine center," Agosta says. "My own practice, my own life really, is a blend of these things, and I believe that the combination of allopathic (conventional western) medicine and alternative practices can bring new solutions. It can bring people to new levels of health."
Agosta moved to the Silver City area from Rhode Island, but knew something of the Southwest after having lived in Taos for 12 years.
"I did my pre-med and med school at UNM (University of New Mexico) and then a residency at Brown (Medical School) in Providence, Rhode Island," she explains. "But I wanted to come back to New Mexico and I remembered Silver City."
That same day she was reflecting on New Mexico, she says, she came across Silver Health Care's ad for a practitioner.
"It felt like a pretty amazing coincidence, so I went with it," she says with an enigmatic smile. "I interviewed with Dr. Skee and found that they'd been actively talking with alternative practitioners — acupuncturists, massage therapists, et cetera. So I felt there was real openness to other healing modalities here, and that encouraged me."
Agosta says an interest in medicinal plants set her on the path to training in a variety of alternative healing modalities and then on to earning her MD.
"After 10 years of that, working with a range of alternative practices, I decided I wanted to work with a scientific foundation, pharmacology and physiology. So then I went on to medical school," she says. "Number one, it gives me a stronger base to work from, to help patients make good decisions, about treatment, about their health. And, number two, it enables me to provide access. Anyone can come to see me as an MD."
This last point, she says, also ties in with insurance issues.
"Coming to see me is coming to see the doctor," she explains. "Your insurance covers what it covers, and me being a traditional doctor opens the door to treatment. Basically, coming to see me is an office visit. And based on what we find, what insurance covers, what the patient is open to and what might help them, I can open doors to what the patient needs. I can say, 'There are other things I know of that we can do, we can explore.'"
To explore the "beyond traditional" aspects of her practice, and where this might go within the scope of her work at Silver Health Care, Agosta has begun scheduling integrative medicine appointments one day a week, on Fridays.
"That's how we're starting out, and what happens with that will guide us, to see where this can go. Could it be a stand-alone facility one day? Is that a plus or minus?" she asks. "Having a separate lab might turn out to be a negative. We don't want to have to send patients someplace else to get work done, you know? We'll see as we go along and things develop what the best set-up is."
With medicinal plants being such a driving force for her interest, Agosta adds that one thing she'd like to see develop down the line is an on-site medicinal plant garden. She runs her fingers through the clutch of curls at her neck and gazes out the window at a small arboretum outside the Silver Health Care offices.
"I can see a community garden sort of thing," she says with an almost whimsical smile. "I can imagine workshops, classes, where patients can learn about plants that can help them. Patients could harvest their own herbs and learn to make teas for their health. It could bring about a real change in lifestyle for some people."
One thing already in form, something that makes Agosta's practice different from what some traditional medical patients might expect of their MD, is her process of "extensive intake and evaluation." This first-visit assessment, she allows, "takes longer and goes into quite a bit of depth." This, she believes, is a key area often rushed through or overlooked in the conventional western model of medical practice.
"Sometimes it is more personal than what people are used to," she says of her evaluation process. "We really get into history, an extensive review of family and personal history. I think this is important, to get to the root of what's going on with a person's health."
Agosta's pre-MD trainings put a variety of alternative techniques into her medical bag of tricks. She does a blend of reiki (a hands-off type of energy work — see "Good Vibrations," August 2006), some chakra work (an ancient system that works with energy centers in the body), acupressure, massage and trigger-point technique for release and relaxation, as well as work with essential oils.
"I feel scent is fairly significant," Agosta says. "It has an effect on the limbic system, connecting deeply with memory and actually having an impact on brain chemistry."
What she calls her "deep session work" may also involve sound therapy, a more subtle alternative-medicine modality. "Sound shifts consciousness and has an effect on our mental and emotional state," she says. "And sound medicine has a strong scientific base. In 'traditional western' medicine, we are now using sound waves to break up kidney stones."
With her traditional medical degree in internal medicine, Agosta explains, she can see patients for a wide range of so-called "regular" medical concerns. But her alternative training may also make her practice attractive to "crossover" patients — those looking for additional modalities for healing.
"There are patients who prefer to not use only allopathic medicines, who are open to the botanical meds," she says. And while Agosta does have training in plant medicine, she allows that with her training having been in another part of the country and herbology being so "regional specific," she would refer such patients to local herbalists.
Going on about "crossover patients," Agosta adds, "There are also patients whose health complaints allopathic medicine hasn't been able to fully address or heal. For those patients, my knowledge and experience in alternative areas can open other doors for treatment options and healing."
Her face lighting up, Agosta goes more fully into discussing the interweaving of allopathic and alternative modalities in her practice.
"It's the body-mind-and-spirit connection that really jazzes me," she says with an animated tilt of her head. "Consciousness can be so much larger than what we operate with on a regular, daily basis! When working with a patient leads into these areas of psyche and self, when they start seeing how other parts of their lives has impact on their health, it can bring about healing change.
"People don't realize how much they have been carrying around, and a shift in that awareness can bring deep change," she says. "It can open a door to deep healing."
Dr. Jennifer Agosta practices at Silver Health Care, 1600 E. 32nd St., in Silver City. To request integrative medicine appointments with her, call Silver Health Care's main office at 538-2981.
Donna Clayton is senior editor of Desert Exposure.