Dear Dad
Dear Dad,
It’s no secret: you wanted me to become a doctor.
Tl;dr (Too long; didn’t read - dedicated to @Ben Katz)
You (Dad) wanted me to become a doctor — and I have always admired your lifelong career in medicine. Even so, I’ve followed lots of different (often remote) paths in my days, none of which was a direct route to becoming a physician like you. Still, I’ve always planned to be a healer, AND now the research is clear: nature-connection supports human wellbeing. So, on Father’s Day 2023, I want you to know that all of my off-trail bushwhacking led me to become a doctor after all — an M.D. of nature-based-learning-as-medicine.
Your Nudges
Back in high school, when music — band, jazz, Mount Vernon — monopolized my life, you suggested playing sax in a jazz combo on the weekends would be “a great complement to being a surgeon.” And, when my days-and-nights-under-skies-in-Capital-N-Nature wilderness canoeing and backpacking trips climbed into the triple digits, you mailed me a glossy brochure about flight-for-life doctors. As I looked at the gorgeous, bearded (dreamy!), male (obviously, sigh) doctor on the side of a mountain — his jawline-that-could-cut-glass, eyes set in a hero’s resolve, hair blowing in the wind (Nature’s? The helicopter’s? Both?) — you had my attention.
Glossy-hot doctors on mountains aside, I had actually already been paying attention. I watched as you devoted your life to medicine — to healing people and to healing processes. As a practicing surgeon for 44 (!) years, right up until the day you had your first stroke, you expertly wielded a scalpel in and out of the operating room. Though I never saw you in the OR, I know you were a respected physician who developed a thriving practice. In the community, I watched your diplomatic scalpel carve out a space for private practices across disciplines — a so-called “clinic without walls” — to coexist in the center of the HMO minefield metastasizing in little old Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
Watching you, I knew I wanted to heal people. You made it seem like the best thing I could possibly do with my professional life.
So Dad, I want you to know: I became a doctor.
Let me explain.
Nature as Medicine
@Dr. Melissa Sundermann — aka #DoctorOutdoors — is probably closer to the path you imagined. Melissa is a bonafide M.D. She is also a Board Certified Lifestyle Medicine physician. The relatively new1 field of Lifestyle Medicine is a medical approach that uses evidence-based behavioral interventions to prevent, treat, and manage chronic disease.2 Along with her fellow Lifestyle Medicine peeps, #DoctorOutdoors leverages the 6 pillars of Lifestyle Medicine in her care with patients: 1) nutrition, 2) physical activity, 3) restorative sleep, 4) stress management, 5) avoidance of risky substances, and 6) social connections.3
Melissa is also the Founding Chair of the Nature as Medicine (NAM) Committee for the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. The NAM committee is working on the currently unofficial, but soon-to-be-official, 7th pillar of Lifestyle Medicine:
7. Daily Exposure to Nature/Fresh Air 🌳🍄🌸🌲👣⛰️🌿❄️☀️🌈 🌲
#7 is where Melissa and I crossed paths on a dirt trail in the social-media forests (thanks @Nature of Wellness podcast, @Dr. Mark Campbell, & @Stephen Otero for the navigational support!).
When I connected with Melissa, I mentioned reading @Dr. Polina Sayess’ blog post listing the “social determinants of health” (SDOH) — things like income, education, job security, housing security, food security, social inclusion/freedom from discrimination, access to affordable health care, and more as the 7th pillar of Lifestyle Medicine. Melissa immediately responded that “SDOH” are “super important.” So maybe #7 = SDOH and “Daily Exposure to Nature/Fresh Air” becomes #8.
I am raising these social determinants of health because education is one of them AND because kids’ experiences in school touch on so many of these — food security, social inclusion, access to affordable health care to name three biggies. And, drum roll while I get back on Learning by Nature’s main message:
nature connections in school (through nature-based learning) can help address pillars #7 and #8, no matter which order they’re in.
Nature-based-Learning-as-Medicine
Ok Dad, so here’s where my wandering often off-trail bushwhacking ends up with me as a doctor.
If I were a M.D., I am certain I would have found my way from the search-and-rescue-helicopter-emergency-response-mountainsides to the ecosystem-level, holistic world of Lifestyle Medicine.
But Lifestyle Medicine — even with its ample aperture — wouldn’t have been big enough. Since you’ve known me my whole life, you understand this. I have always believed we need to pay attention to and care for WHOLE humans and we need to pay attention to and care for the WHOLE 🌍 planet.
I’m going to riff on Desmond Tutu’s famous and beautiful words: “My humanity is bound up in yours” to say this:
Our wellbeing is bound up in Earth’s — and vice versa.
So, Dad, to bring this letter home, I firmly believe in Lifestyle Medicine pillars 1-6. I’m an even bigger fan of unofficial pillars #7 and #8. Plus nature-as-medicine (#8) can help address some of the social determinants of health (#7) if we embed nature-connections in schools. Which COULD HAPPEN TOMORROW through nature-based learning implemented through nature-based learning practices systemically supported by nature-based learning design. More about that here.
Here’s how the metaphor pencils ✏️ out:
📚🌱 nature-based learning is 💊 medicine — because we FEEL BETTER when we connect with nature and nature-based learning helps us connect with nature.
📚🌱 nature-based learning practices — pedagogical and classroom design — are the work of educators-AS-doctors 🍎 🩺 who are prescribing and administering nature to their students and themselves through the WAY THEY TEACH.
🏫 Schools are sites that support health and healing (See @Claire Latané @Anna Harrison @Nina Briggs) through nature connection fostered by nature-based learning.
For years, I have practiced nature-as-medicine — through outdoor education and, more recently, through nature-based-learning. I became a professor of nature-based-learning-as-medicine — building educators’ capacity to practice nature-based-learning-as-medicine themselves in their schools and classrooms. Now, I am trying to be a doctor of social change — much like you were back in little old Eau Claire with your diplomatic scalpel — pushing adoption of nature-based learning design principles across all sectors that connect to our students, educators, and schools.
So thanks, Dad, for setting me on a path to become a doctor all along. I appreciate your nudges, patience (most of the time), and trust that I’d find my way here.
Love,
Me
The first Board exam in Lifestyle Medicine was in 2017.
From https://lifestylemedicine.org/ Accessed June 19, 2023.