Short personal testimony by Aaron Hartman, MD about his foster daughter Ann’s medical journey. He describes opposing multiple invasive procedures recommended by specialists and instead pursuing a holistic path grounded in love, self-care, hope, and active advocacy — reading research and traveling to find answers — and calls for restoring humanity to medicine.
Chapters
Medicine is science. Healing is love in action. That's what my daughter taught me when we first brought Ann to her home. She was a foster child that I fell in love with. And when that happened, I realized for in order for her to get back on the path to healing, self repair, I had to figure it out. Her GI doctor wanted to do a procedure on her. Her eye doctors wanted to cut her eye muscles. Her orthopedic surgeons want to cut her spine. My wife and I were the only people who wanted her body to heal. We didn't want to manipulate her body. We wanted it to heal and repair. So your ability to self care, your ability to have love for those around you is super huge because it will make you do things seemingly impossible. For me, it was getting at 4 o' clock in the morning to read your research articles and travel around the country and across country lines to find answers for my daughter. So one thing that's important for your healing journey as well is your ability to have hope, love yourself, but also realize there's answers out there. Let's bring humanity back to medicine.