“Uncovering the Root Causes of Health: Insights from Dr. Erica Elliott, the Health Detective”

Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show podcast, the podcast show where we unlock potential one dream at a time. Today we have another guest whose journey is truly worth hearing. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the Moneyway experience.

What's up, my good people? Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show. Today we have MD who has been nicknamed the Health Detective, Dr. Erica Elliott, on the show today. How you doing, Doc?

I'm doing great. I'm happy to be here.

Ah, thank you for coming on today. Thank you for taking some time out of your day and coming on the Moneyway Show. So Erica, tell us a little bit about yourself and a little bit about your background.

Okay, so I'm a medical doctor. And I've been practicing medicine for over 40 years. I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I have a very busy medical practice. I'm no longer taking new patients because I'm just flooded with patients and they come from all over the country. I attract people with difficult-to-diagnose conditions and, and that's why they've nicknamed me the health detective. And really, my fourth book is going to be about how I solve these problems. And actually, it's very simple. And the reason why these people haven't gotten proper diagnosis and they've been to many specialists, they've spent a lot of money trying to figure out why they're tired all the time or why their joints hurt all the time or they're depressed all the time and got just multiple symptoms and nobody can help them. And so the tools I use are just really easy. So it reflects very poorly on mainstream medicine, actually, because if somebody's been to 15 specialists and then I can diagnose them within a few minutes, that means something's wrong with our system. Because all I do simply is do a timeline. I say to my patients, okay, when did you start feeling bad? And usually they can't really pin it down, but I keep insisting I need to know approximately when these things start happening. And so they say, okay, January— this is a real, real case I'm about to tell you— January of 2 or 3 years ago, 3 years ago. And I said, what happened then? And they all— all the patients always say the same thing, nothing. I say, okay, everything happens for a reason. We're just going to sit here and I'm going to ask you questions till we figure it out. By the way, this was a very wealthy businessman from San Francisco. He had been to 15 specialists for his huge list of problems that were getting worse and worse and worse and worse. And somebody said, oh, there's this doctor in Santa Fe. She really likes to figure out medical mysteries. So he came to me. Yeah. And so anyway, I said, okay, January of 2021 or whenever it was, I said, okay, did you travel abroad? Thinking maybe parasites. No. Did you change your diet? No. Did you move someplace? No. You mean move to a different country? I said, you know, move anywhere. And he said, Yeah, I moved to a house in San Francisco. It was kind of an old house. And I said, well, think back. Is that when things started to go downhill? And he said, well, not right away, but yeah, things started getting worse around that time. And I said, was there any water damage in the house? And he said, how would I know that? And I said, well, are there stains on the wall? Like around the windows or near the ceiling or under the sink in the bathroom? He said, "Oh yeah, it's full of stains." I said, "You've got mold toxicity. So your first job is you have to get out of there. You have to find a very safe, non-toxic house. Non-toxic meaning no mold and no outgassing nasty chemicals. And then we'll start rebuilding you." And I said, you've been in that moldy house for so long, it's not going to be a quick fix. And it's going to— you're going to have to radically make radical changes, like to your diet and the way you spend your day and supplements and doing sauna and so forth to get rid of the toxins and take binders to bind all the toxins that the mycotoxins that the mold makes that are excreted in your body and make you so sick. And after a year, he was so desperate— that's when people make real changes, when they're so desperate, because people don't want to change their diet. They don't want to make these changes. They're addicted to their diet or comfort food. But when your life has completely fallen apart and you can't do your job— he was a well-regarded businessman. He couldn't do anything anymore. He was so incapacitated. But when you're like that, I like having patients like that because they're willing to make huge changes that they would never make unless they were really sick. And he said, after a year of following the program, and he's gradually getting well all the time, and he said he'd never felt so good in his entire life. And it was like an epiphany, awakening for him. And he decided to devote his next business undertaking into doing something related to health. So he made these little— he calls them shots— that really took off in the West and got really popular. And I was the consultant for that company, which has now been bought out. But anyway, so how did I get here? How did I become a medical doctor? I'll tell you, CJ. I was always wondering ever since I was a girl, and I don't think any other of my friends were like this, but I always thought I had a purpose. There was a purpose for my life, but I didn't know what it was. I, I'd look around and I think, there must be a reason I'm here. I don't know what, but even as a young girl, that's kind of unusual to be thinking those kind of thoughts when you're so young and just not just playing with the kids. But I was saying, you know, is life just about going to school and then playing with your friends and then eating dinner and watching TV and going to bed. So there has to be more than that in life. And so I was determined I was going to figure out why I was here. But I had some roadblocks along the way. And the roadblocks were my upbringing. And I came from a very strict household. My father was a general and my mother was from Switzerland, old school. Where hitting and slapping your children was considered in their best interest. Yeah, and constantly criticizing. And so I thought I was pretty worthless, you know, because kids are literal. They don't understand that the parents don't really think you're stupid, but kids interpret those kinds of things literally. And so anyway, I was in high school in Germany, so that's even stricter. So because my father's job in the military. And so when it was time to go to college, I didn't really know what college to go to because when I looked at all the catalogs that the college counselor from America brought, they all sounded the same to me. I didn't know how to choose. And she said, well, just a lot of the kids just pick where their parents went. And I said, well, my mother graduated from the University of Zurich in Switzerland. I'm not going there. Yeah, my father from Harvard, and I'm not interested in that. So I don't really know where to go. And I ran into these people while hitchhiking. In the old days, it was safe to hitchhike in Europe. It wasn't dangerous for girls. It's not like now, you'd be putting your life in your hands. Exactly. And so I'd stay at these youth hostels, and occasionally I'd run into these groups of people that were kind of unusual. They were all musical, and when they talked, they were so knowledgeable about what was happening in world and stuff. But they were kind of eccentric. They dressed like gypsies or something. This is in the early '60s and full-on hippie days. But so, and I wasn't in America, so I didn't watch the hippie movement come in. I wasn't there when it happened. And so I thought, well, I'm going to go to the college where they're from. And when I, when the advisor, I told the advisor, I picked Antioch College. She gasped and she said, "That's no place for a nice girl like you." I said, "Why not?" And she said, "Well, because—" And then she was trying to think of all the reasons why I shouldn't go there. She said, "Well, they demonstrate against our government for the war in Vietnam." And I said, "What's wrong with that?" She said, "Well, you shouldn't. You should be standing behind your government." And I said, "What else is wrong with the school?" She said, "Well, it's the only school in the whole United States that boys and girls are in the same dorm. I said, well, what's wrong with that? My brother lives in— my brothers live in the same house as me. And then she said, well, the worst thing of all is they smoke a plant that makes you crazy.

I said, oh, what's it called?

She said, marijuana. I said, I've never heard of that, but I was a very curious girl. I wanted to know about everything, even if it was dangerous. And so, so I went to that school. And it was a shocking experience for me. I couldn't speak the hippie language. I didn't understand when the guy picked me up in the van from the airport. He asked me along the way if I'd ever dropped acid. Dropped acid? I don't think so. Maybe in chemistry class, I might have dropped a couple drops or something. Talking that way. And I just finally thought, I don't even know what he's talking about. Smoke weed and stuff like that. And what do I think about the pigs in Chicago who whatever? I couldn't understand it. Yeah. And so I thought, oh my God, I'm gonna have to learn this language really quickly because otherwise I'm not gonna know what's going on. And then when I got there, oh, it was like a lunatic asylum. There was this group of people looking in on this guy who was dark naked, talking like he was Jesus Christ. And I tapped a guy on the shoulder and said, excuse me, sir, can you tell me what's happening here? And he said, the dude's flipped out on acid. And I said, oh, thank you very much. I didn't know what he was talking about. I thought, oh my God, if my parents find out that I go to this crazy school, they're going to be so upset. Well, anyway, so I thought the only way I'm going to survive is to try and be like them. So I learned to talk like them. I listened to the music that they listened to, Bob Dylan and all that stuff. And I got rid of all my, like, my miniskirt and my nice little purse and my nice little heels, went to the secondhand store and dressed like they did with kind of like rags, kind of, you know, stuff with embroidered shirts and stuff like that. And I wanted to try everything. Just to experience this world. And one thing is, because I had such a good education in Germany, I tested out of all my science requirements. So that I thought, oh my God, what am I going to do? I'm just take fun courses like, like art and sculpture and piano lessons and stuff. I said, oh my God, I'm not going to really get an education. And then I tried all these things. I tried marijuana. And it made me kind of psychotic. The reason why is I found out years later, like decades later, when I studied environmental medicine, that I did genetic testing on myself, and I can't clear certain chemicals. So I'm more sensitive. So I always wondered all my life why everybody loved marijuana so much. And for me, I felt like I was mentally ill when I took it. It was horrible. It was because I can't clear the THC, among other chemicals I can't clear either. So I'm sort of the sensitive type. And but so, but I kept trying to do these things because I wanted to fit in. And then I drank beer with them and wine, and I never really drank alcohol before that. And then I went up to psilocybin and then LSD, and now I was completely psychotic. And my roommate, we were in this little room, and our beds were right angles to each other. She had sex every night with her boyfriend. I was even getting more crazy in my head from sleep deprivation. So now I was a mess. And so I decided that my life had no purpose. It was like a revelation. Gosh, my life has no purpose. There's no reason for me to live. I'm worthless. I'm not contributing anything to the world. And I think I'm going to kill myself. And so I was really cuckoo. And so I decided— I'd read in my French 19th century literature class, I read about how people who had unrequited love, how they committed suicide. And it sounded so noble how they did it for love and how they sat in front of an oven and they gassed themselves to death. So I decided I was going to do that too. And so we had a little teeny kitchen and I turn on the gas and I open the oven door and sat next to the oven and waiting to die. And I— nothing happened. I said, this isn't the way it is in the book. Yeah, what's going on here? And so I thought, But again, remember, I was very mixed up, so I thought, oh, the pilot light is off, okay. And I got a box of matches, lit it, and the whole place exploded. Wow. I was thrown back in my chair while I was in the chair, thrown back against the wall, and I was burned, uh, my— this part of my hair, my eyebrows, eyelashes, and singed on my face. And the whole apartment went like this. And so the guy upstairs ran down, he saw what happened, he pulled me into the shower, turned on the shower, and, and then after the heat— Need new glasses or want a fresh new style? Warby Parker has you covered. Glasses start at just $95, including anti-reflective, scratch-resistant prescription lenses that block 100% of UV rays. Every frame's designed in-house with a huge selection of styles for every face shape. And with Warby Parker's free home try-on program, you can order 5 pairs to try at home for free. Shipping is free both ways too. Go to warbyparker.com/covered to try 5 pairs of frames at home for free. warbyparker.com/covered. I subsided. He took me out of the shower, he wiped me down, he helped me dress, and he said, "You were trying to kill yourself, weren't you?" And I said, "Well—" Yeah, I was. And he said, well, I have to report you to the dean. I said, oh no, please don't do that. Please don't do that. Then they're going to tell my parents and then ask me to leave. And he said, well, if you had committed suicide, your parents would have found out. So what's the difference? And so I said, okay. And so I went to the dean and she said, you have a choice. You know, she said, you can, we'll contact your parents. And they'll come get you and take you home, or you can see the college psychiatrist. I said, I don't need a psychiatrist. That's for crazy people. This was in the days where psychiatrists saw, you know, schizophrenics and psychotic mental hospitals. I said, I'm not mental. I'm not. She said, you tried to kill yourself. Yeah. So I said, okay, I'll go. So I made an appointment. I went into the town. To where the college psychiatrist was. And I waited in there and the room was full of smoke and stuff like that. And I was so depressed. And finally, this very handsome Black man with a suit and just really beautiful man walked in and he said, Erica Elliott, and he shook my hand. And I was so ashamed. I just couldn't make eye contact with him. I was so embarrassed. So we went inside and I sat on one side of the desk and he sat on the other. And I just looked at the floor, looked at my feet and cried. I was so embarrassed and humiliated and ashamed and wished I was dead. And so he started talking and he couldn't get me to talk. So he started talking about himself. And he said that he was the first Black psychiatrist to graduate from the University of Zurich in Switzerland. Wow. Amazing. Yeah. And he was telling me all about his life and stuff. And then he kept asking me questions. And again, I was so ashamed of myself. I just couldn't talk. I just couldn't talk. I just couldn't. I just cried the whole time. Then he got up. And he walked to the door and opened it and he said, "You can leave now." I said, "But no, I have to be here or else they're going to tell my parents." And he said, "Well, you can straighten that out. But if you're not going to participate in your care, then you need to leave." I said, "Well, if I talk, can I stay?" And he said, "Yes." And then did I talk. And CJ, I want to tell you what happened. This psychiatrist was the best thing that happened to me in my life up to that point. And he helped me achieve the real authentic me. He was incredible. And he didn't give me pills, and he didn't tell me what to do. He did something so remarkable. He held this sacred space for me, and it was the first time in my life I had been treated with respect. He really saw and heard me, and I'd never felt like that by anybody in my life growing up. I never felt really seen who I am or heard. And he was so kind and respectful, and he let me figure out my own problems. And every once in a while, what he would do is he would say a certain thing to sort of caused me to shift my thinking a little bit. Like, I'll just give you an example. Like, I'd be talking and then he'd say, um, could you explain to me why you think you're stupid? And then so I start saying this and that. And he said, well, how do you reconcile that all your teachers wrote stellar reviews about you and said you were so smart, you're smartest kid in the class? And you were all these wonderful things, including your professors too, at Antioch. He said, so how did you— and then, you know, I burst out laughing because I realized, God, he's right. It doesn't make any sense at all. Because when your family tells you something and you're little, then that has more power than 100 compliments. Yeah, because you're little, you, you know, and these are your family, and they— and so when they say these cruel things about you, you think that's the reality. And the teachers don't really know you, and if they really knew you, they'd think you were stupid. So yeah, but so he, he was so wonderful that the way he sort of guided me so gently, and I could solve my own problems. And over 2 years I discovered who I really am. And it's nothing like what I thought I was. Nothing. Nothing. And I say this is where my life, my true life began. And I reconciled with my family. And it was, it was really huge because I was the first one in my family to ever say, I love you, because we didn't talk like that. We people who— they thought people who talk like that were kind of something wrong with their brain, or they're mushy or something. And, and so I broke that taboo. And when I said, "I love you, Mommy," and she was my tormentor, "I love you, Mommy," she, she just broke down and sobbed. For the first time I'd ever seen my mother cry, because she had a big shield around her heart. And that word, "I love you," pierced that shield. And it caused ripples in my whole family. They— when one person doesn't dance the dance, then the dance really can't keep going, right? So, so I was the one who broke that taboo. And then everything started changing in the family. People started being nicer to each other, kinder, more careful about their words. And so I finished with no wounds. I had no wounds. And yet I was a very wounded girl. But after I finished with the psychiatrist who helped me have compassion for myself and see myself in a totally different light, then it allowed me to have compassion for my tormentors. Because then I realized, you know, like, my mother had an awful life in Switzerland. She was raised by stepmothers. Her father was a wonderful man, a doctor. I'm third generation Doctors on the Swiss side. But he was gone all the time. So these stepmothers were so cruel that in the States, they'd be put in jail for child abuse. So I saw everything in a different light. And I had compassion for my family. So I don't— I'm not wounded anymore. I have siblings who are still wounded. I'm not wounded. I have love for, for all my family.. And so that's when my life launched. So I said, okay, now I'm going to really— now I'm ready to find my purpose. Okay. So when I left Antioch, I decided to visit my mother's brother. He's a very famous doctor in Switzerland, but he left mainstream and practiced in a much more natural way. And he was attracting people from all over Europe, and from, from the very famous to the street sweepers from Turkey and Italy. And so he used different methods. And I wanted to visit him because my father said he was a quack. And my mother said he was a genius. And so I thought, I'm gonna see who he really is. Is he a quack? Or is Is he a genius? Okay. When I first went there, I thought he is a total quack because he told me— I said, I'm here to learn about you and do a little report and be like an investigative journalist. And he's very eccentric, probably from the bad treatment he had as a little boy. He was very shy and awkward. And he told me that I— he said, "Your fast has begun today." I said, "What? My fast? What do you mean?" And he was multilingual. I was multilingual. So I asked him to say it in about 3, 4 different languages. And it all meant the same. You don't eat for 2 weeks. So I said, "But I'll die." And he said, "No, no, no, it'll help you clear toxins from your body." I said, this is 1970. I said, "Toxins?" But like an oil spill or something? I said, "I'm not toxic." And he said, "Well, Americans are toxic." "What do you mean Americans are toxic?" Now I thought he's a lunatic. I want to go home. I'm not going to do this fasting thing. This is— I'll die and I'm only 21. And so yeah, my father was right. He's a nutcase. And, and so he said Americans are— eat bad food and there's lots of bad chemicals that they breathe. And anyway, so I decided, well, I'm going to stay here one day and then I'm going to escape and go home and forget about it. The holiday season is now approaching, but at bluenile.com, there's always something to celebrate. Whether you're looking for everyday elegance to elevate a casual outfit bracelet, or a statement piece worthy of your biggest holiday looks, Blue Nile brings sparkle to any occasion. With some of the highest quality standards in the industry and jewelry experts on hand to answer any questions, you can be confident in your purchase. Right now, celebrate the season with 30% off at bluenile.com. That's bluenile.com. Don't miss out on CJ Moneyway Johnson's book, Both Eyes Open 'One and Both Eyes Shut.' And get ready to preorder his upcoming release, 'The Issues of Life,' coming soon. Moneyway, aiming to inspire. So I started 'Stop Eating,' and then I talked to some of these patients in the clinic, and they were raving about Uncle Andrew. They, they all had some kind of terminal, untreatable case, like from schizophrenia to terminal cancer. Horrible autoimmune disease, and, and he was getting them well. And he wasn't practicing mainstream anymore. He had left and was doing these different kinds of modalities. And he was like 50 years ahead of his time. So fast forward, so I don't take up too much time talking about him. I thought this guy is a genius. And I was so enthralled by how he could heal people. And then one of his patients said, well, you're going to become a doctor, right? And then work with your uncle. I said, no, no, he's a genius. I'm not a genius. He's a genius. So, and then I left having this total misperception that you had to be a genius to be a doctor, which is completely wrong. And but I held on to that because I never went. I was healthy. I didn't I didn't know what doctors were like. I didn't really have much interaction with doctors. So he was my only example of a doctor. And he was a real genius. So I thought, I guess, I guess, even though this is in my DNA, it's not— I'm not qualified. So I went for 10 years looking for my purpose, for 10 years. And it was right in front of me the whole time. But here's the good news. The good news is this 10-year journey was totally magical because I was free now, thinking I can do anything, and no self-doubts or bad feelings about who I am or anything. I was very open, very free, and to just choose my path and not choose anyone else's path, choose my path. And so I went to be a schoolteacher with the Navajo Nation on the reservation. I was very young at the time. I wrote a book about it because it's about 55 years ago when everybody was very traditional on the reservation, and it's called Medicine and Miracles in the High Desert: My Life Among the Navajo People. And it was very life-changing. I participated in all their secret ceremonies and so forth that no white person ever C's. And it was because when I started learning Navajo, the reason why I started learning Navajo is because the kids were so shy. They wouldn't talk to me. They wouldn't make eye contact. And also the white teachers had nothing but bad things to say about the students, like they couldn't learn, they weren't very smart. That was so not true. It was because They knew the white teachers didn't care about them. And so, and here I was, another white teacher. And so, you know, they just, and many of them couldn't even speak English in the 4th grade. And so, because they just weren't into learning, you know, it was boring. They didn't like it. The Dick and Jane books they couldn't relate to. And so my teacher aide who really knew white people's culture and Navajo culture because she moved around in the Army with her famous father, Carl Gorman, who was a famous code talker. You know, code talkers in World War II? It was the only code that was never broken in World War II because Navajo is so hard. And so her father was a code talker, and so she knew both cultures. And she took me aside, she said, You know, if you can learn just a little bit of Navajo, it will change everything because then the students will know you really like them and you really want to connect with them. So, she taught— it's the hardest language in the whole world. And I'm multilingual, so I'm geared for languages, but this language was impossible. No wonder the Japanese and the Germans could never figure out the code. It's impossible. Language. And but I managed. And so the next day I came in and I said, "Yat'esh al chinashye, erika elliot inashye, nishal khashinye." And everybody looked up for the first time, made eye contact with me for the first time in shock. And then one little girl put her hand over her mouth and started laughing. And then everybody started laughing. And that was the beginning of a love affair between me and these students. And it was a boarding school. So each week, a kid would come up and say, will you take me home for the weekend? And so I was going to all these remote hogans in the middle of nowhere in Canyon de Chelly, gorgeous area, gorgeous. And I would participate in their sacred ceremonies and even the peyote ceremonies. And I saw things that you can't explain by logic. I saw real miracles happen. I saw that, and even though I had no way to explain it, I knew it was real. I knew what I was seeing was real. Kids, babies getting healed with prayer. I had a big tumor. It's like a lymph node gland, and I was supposed to get a biopsy because it looked like cancerous. Instead, one of the parents of the kids in my class said, we'll have a ceremony for you. And During the ceremony, I felt it. And the thing that was really hard and truly cancerous, it disappeared. I, you know, I was almost— didn't want to tell people because they thought— would think I'm crazy. But, you know, it happened. And so a lot of things that I couldn't explain. So I kept all these diaries and everything. That's how I could write the book 50 years later, because I documented everything because I thought someday I won't even believe this really happened because it's so beyond what we're taught is possible. And in those ceremonies, when I was doing the peyote, I could speak fluent Navajo. How do you explain that? How do you explain that? I don't think— So anyway, then I was there for 2 years, and then I went to join the Peace Corps, and I was stationed in the Andes Mountains. With a Quechua-speaking group of indigenous people, and I was teaching them how to speak Spanish as a second language so they could get jobs in the city and so forth and not have to live in such deep poverty. And on the weekends, I would join this all-men's climbing club and climb big high mountains. And how that happened is— am I talking too much? No, no, go ahead.

I'm listening. You got a fascinating story.

Okay. So One time when all the Peace Corps volunteers arrived, they spent 3 months learning the language and the customs, but I already knew fluent Spanish. So they said I could just do my own thing during those weeks when they had training. So I'd wander around Quito, and one day the clouds opened up and I was looking up and I saw this thing that looked like an apparition, this huge cone-shaped volcano covered in glaciers. It looked like something, I don't know, out of heaven or something. And I just stood there in awe. And this man came up and talked to me in Spanish, and he said, that's Cotopaxi. That's the highest active volcano in the entire world. And I said, again, I'm very curious, even if the curiosity takes me to dangerous places. That— my curiosity just drives me. So I said, um, who climbs— do people climb that? And he said, oh yeah, but only experts climb that. I said, well, who are the experts? And he said, well, there's a climbing club, an all-men's climbing club in Quito. It's part of the Polytechnical Institute. That's like the MIT of Ecuador. And they climb it. And I say, do women climb it? Oh, no, no, women don't do that kind of thing, you know? No. And so I said, where is this climbing club? He gave me the address and I walked there and I spoke to the secretary, said, when's your next meeting? And she told me. And so when that next meeting came up, I showed up, I walked in and all the men turned around and looked at me like, what? What are you doing here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I said, can I join your club? I can't believe I had such audacity. And they said, well, you know, do you have experience? And I said, oh yeah, I've climbed mountains before. But I made a mistake. It wasn't really intentional. Maybe it was, but unconsciously. But I used hiking and climbing, they're separate things. Hiking is like walking the mountains. Climbing is, you know, with ropes and stuff. Yeah, yeah. I said the wrong term. I said climbing. I said, oh yeah, I climbed all these, all these mountains. And they asked for me to name them, and I knew they wouldn't ever heard them. So I said Mount Jefferson, Mount Washington, Mount Baker. And, and they said, oh, but they didn't know what that was. And they didn't know that their anthills compare. These are, these are, you know, over 20,000 feet mountains. And in America, the mountains I was talking about, the highest one, Mount Washington, is 6,000 feet. Many of them are 3,000 feet, which are like little knobs compared to the Andes in Ecuador. So they said, well, what gear do you have? And I said, well, I only have a sleeping bag, what I brought for the Peace Corps. And they said, well, Next Saturday we'll go to the glacier and we'll just see what equipment you need and we'll see what you know. Well, then the truth came out. I didn't know anything. I didn't even know how to put on crampons. I didn't know how to tie a knot in the right way. I didn't know how to hold the ice axe the right way. And so they kind of looked at each other and then they said, We'll be right back. And the whole group walked away, and I freaked out. I thought, oh my God, I'm going to die here. They're going to be really mad at me. They're going to punish me. I'm going to be left here. Some jaguar in the jungle way miles away is going to come out and eat me up, and my parents will never find me. I really goofed up. And then finally, they walked back. It seemed like forever. It was probably just 10 minutes, but it seemed like a half an hour. So they walked back, and one guy is smiling at me, sticking out his arm, shakes my hand and said, "I will teach you everything I know." Well, fast forward, I was such a good student that after I acclimatized to the altitude, because this was at 12,000 feet, I became just as good as them. And eventually, when it was time to leave the Peace Corps with some of my friends, we decided to climb Aconcagua, which is the highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere. It's on the border of Argentina and Chile, and it's 23,000 feet. And I was the first American woman to climb it. And so, and I have a peak named after me in Ecuador. So I got really good at climbing. And then it was time to go home. And I didn't know what I was going to do. I was still looking for my purpose. So I thought, well, I'll teach for Outward Bound. And so I did that. And it was It's really a very profound experience watching all these kids. I had two gang members in my course. And at the same time, I had a retired MIT professor who'd never carried a pack and never been in the wilderness. And Jackson, the gang member in New York, and Jerome in the same tent. And at first Jackson said he hated it here. He wished he had chosen jail instead of taking my course because the juvenile judge said you have a choice of either going to detention or taking this course. So he said I should have gone to jail. But anyway, that was the first day. And then something magical happened. He started helping the professor because the professor didn't know anything. And he wasn't very strong or anything. So Jackson started helping him out. And then pretty soon, Jackson was getting high off of helping people. And he would offer them to tie their knots on their rope, help them with rock climbing. He'd help them cross the river streams. People just loved him, and they didn't know— I had this brainstorm, CJ. The brainstorm was when the students came, they're only allowed to say their name. They couldn't say where they're from, what they did for a living, what bad things they did, good things they did. They couldn't say anything. And so nobody knew that that guy was a professor. Nobody knew that Jackson was a gang member. And so it was like giving everybody a chance to start on a clean slate. And what happened to Jackson was miraculous. He realized how good it made him feel to help other people who weren't as strong as he was and or skilled as he was. And he ended up after my course saying that he wanted to finish high school, go to college and The professor offered to pay for his college. The professor was so profoundly moved by Jackson. He was just so grateful because Jackson was so kind and patient with him and helpful. And he said he was going to form his own version of Outward Bound for gang members and blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I thought, this is my purpose in life. This is so beautiful. And also, I was getting my master's degree in outdoor education. It wasn't very demanding. So I decided— the story's coming to an end pretty soon. I decided that since I had all this free time, that I was going to take some college courses, some freshman college courses with the sciences that I had tested out of, because I knew that science had become much updated since the '60s. And I wanted to learn an updated version of biology and chemistry and so forth. So I signed up for Advanced Placement, this and that. And to my shock, every single student in my class, except for me, was pre-med. And then a huge light bulb went off. Oh my God, these kids are not geniuses. They're not even brilliant. But they're good at memorizing. And they're good at taking standardized tests. And I thought, oh my God, I've had this misconception all these 10 years. Oh my God. And I thought, I can memorize. I remember memorizing when I was in school in England in the first grade. I had to memorize these long poems even though I didn't even know what they meant. And so I thought, I can do those standardized tests. I can memorize. —And these guys don't even have critical thinking. They don't— In Europe, we learned critical thinking. You say, "How do you know that's true?" and "Is that in all cases?" You know, you question. Nobody questioned anything. They were just, you know, taking in this stuff, memorizing, and spitting it out. And I thought, "Wow!" And so I thought, "Oh my God! Oh my God! I can be a doctor! That's what I'm supposed to— That's what I'm here for!" Oh my God. And then, and then what happened is one of my teachers said, I told him I wanted, I wanted to go to be a doctor and said, well, I think you should talk to the counselor. And I said, okay. And the counselor read all my records and said, this is very impressive, but I don't think medicine is the right field for you. I said, what? And he said, "Well, you've got a lot of things against you, even though you've got a very fascinating portfolio." I said, "What are the things against me?" And he said, "Well, number one, you're a woman." And in that era, it was true, it was harder to get in as a woman. That's a long time ago. Number two, you don't have any science background. I said, "Yeah, because I tested out of it." And he said, "Three—" You've never done anything medical. You haven't worked in a hospital or anything. Oh, and I said, what's the other thing? And he said, you're too old. Too old. Oh my God. I was 29. Oh man. 29. And now they take 45-year-olds. But that was a long time ago. And so you know what I said? I said, you know, Okay, thank you. And then I went and applied to Stanford and Dartmouth and the University of Colorado. And, and to my huge shock, I got a call from the admissions office at Stanford. And I didn't know all the rules. I didn't, you know, live my whole life in America. I wasn't around pre-med students. I wasn't raised in this cult of, you know, I'm going to be a doctor when I grow up and all that stuff. So I didn't know how you're supposed to do things. And so I just acted spontaneously. So, so the admissions officer said, can you come to San Francisco so we could interview you? Because we're very interested in you. You have an unusual portfolio. And we were looking for about, you know, a percentage of our class, like 5% or something, to be out of the box, not the usual medical student, doctor, and so forth. And so I said, I said, no, I can't, I can't come to San Francisco. I don't have any money. I was in the Peace Corps, and I can't afford a nice hotel and the airplane and a nice suit and all that stuff. Is there any way you could come here and interview me. And then there's a big silence. Uh-oh, I think I said something wrong. And so then I start talking really fast. I said, listen, if you came out here, I would give you an experience you would never forget in your whole life. I'm a former Outward Bound instructor. I have all this gear. I have, you know, all you'd have to do is rent boots and some skis. And cross-country skis. I show you how to do it. And we go to Rocky Mountain National Park and I pack lunch for us in our packs and we sit on a log and look at the Rocky Mountains in the snow. And you can interview me there. And then a long silence.

He said, I'll get back with you.

I told my classmates, I told my classmates, and they said, you You really fucked up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You blew it.

How could you do something so stupid? They're never gonna call you back. Well, he did call me back. And he said, because you're so unusual, my supervisor said, we're gonna make this exception. And we're— you can fly out. I said, really? You're gonna do it? You're gonna come here? Okay, I'll meet you at the airport in Denver. And you'll have the time of your life. He did have the time of his life, but as we're sitting on the log, he said, "We really want you, but you have to play by the rules, and you're not playing by the rules. You're applying to medical school before you finished your courses and before you take your big MCAT medical certification test." It's an all-day test, horrendous. And I said, "Yes, I have to because the advisor said I'm too old, so I need to get to school." to med school right away. He said, you can't do that. You have to finish your courses, take the exam, and if you score in the top 10%, we will pay all your expenses, all of them, food, lodging, and for the 4 years. And I said, oh, okay, thank you very much. And then after he left, I thought, oh my God, what if I I don't score in the top. And then all these years, I was worried about the years because the supervisor made me freak out about my age. 29 is nothing. Meantime, so I'm finishing up and I take the MCAT, that big exam, early before I'd done all my courses. I did the national average before I even had half the courses, just guessing. And so the University of Colorado contacted me and said, "We'd like to interview you." And they said, they grilled me as though they didn't want me. But it was all, they were trying to sort of do humor. They said, "What makes you think with all the things you've done in your life that you're gonna stick to medicine? You've done this and this and this and this, and they're all great. But are you just gonna get your degree in medicine and then go on to something else and have one more feather in your cap?" I said, no, I finally found my destiny. This is what I'm supposed to be doing. Anyway, so he eventually laughed. He said, we've already accepted you. Just, you've got to finish your courses, though. And you don't wait. And by the time you're in medical school, and you start, you'll be 31. And that's old, but that's fine. Meaning, in that era, it was old. It's not old anymore. Yeah, that's, that's where it started. And just to briefly end, I was 10 years in mainstream medicine, and I realized this isn't my true path in life because it's all about just giving pills, and you don't really get to know the patient. You don't really get to help them heal properly. You're just treating symptoms. So I left to practice my own, and that's when my life just took off. It was so joyful and so meaningful to be able to really help people get well. I can't tell you. And I'm 76 and I have no desire to retire. Why would I? I just love my patients and I love helping them figure out how to feel better. It really brings me so much joy. And I hope your listeners— I hope they can identify with certain parts of what I'm saying, even though it doesn't look the same, because everybody— lots of people have to overcome the self-concept they have, and usually they don't have very good self-concept, and they have to get to know who they really are. And I think that's universal.

Yeah. Yeah, it is universal. Doc, you have a very, very, very, very interesting story. Very interesting story. And I don't want to add to it, and I don't want to take away from it. Is there anything else that you would like to share with us before we wrap this up?

I wrote a book about those 10 years and it's called From Mountains to Medicine. And I think the people— you can read the reviews on Amazon. It's really touching a chord in people. I mean, it's gotten 5 stars from everybody who writes about it. And I think it's because I'm very transparent. I don't put on airs. I don't sort of pretty things up, airbrush it. I tell the raw truth. Yeah, and that takes guts, you know, but it makes the reader understand that I'm totally credible because I'm not gonna pretend I'm somebody I'm not.

Yeah, and that's all what transparency is nowadays, and that's what we need more of that in the world today, people that's being more honest. Where can we find you at on your social media channels?

Oh, okay, I'm on Facebook and Instagram. And I have a blog post that I think your listeners might really like. It's called Musings: Memoir and Medicine. And it's a mixture of some of these excerpts from my life and travel and so forth. But what I think your listeners would really like are the medical posts. And so they click under— well, the website is Musings with an S, Musings: Memoir and Medicine. Allone word, dot com. And then they go on that site and they click under medicine and they'll see all these blog posts and they'll learn things that they'll never learn from their doctor about how to get well from cholesterol stuff and, and the truth about certain drugs, statins and so forth. And it's very truthful and it's based on a lot of experience and research and it's stuff that they won't easily find elsewhere. And I did it initially for my patients and now it's for everybody. And my professional website is ericaelliotmd.com. And Elliot is with two L's and two T's. ericaelliotmd.com. So I hope your listeners enjoy.

I hope they enjoy it just as much as I did. Hey, today we had Erica Elliott, MD. Go get the book. Mountains to Medicine. Go on the website, check out all things medical. You have been listening to the CJ Moneyway Show. We outta here. Peace.

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