I’m Melanie Dorion, Founder and Medical Director of Be Vital Health Center. This is the process I’ve followed for years, and now the process all our providers at Be Vital follow as well.
My Process. Our Process
We look at the whole you.
We want to know ALL of your story. How your body got out of balance and how it’s not performing optimally matters. During your initial visit, we will review your history and discuss ALL facets of your health–physical, mental and emotional–which will help us get to know you and how to support you better into your optimal health.
We take an in-depth look inside.
Functional medicine gets to the root cause of illness. To get to the core of what is causing imbalance, we need to take a comprehensive look inside your body. Together, we will do a thorough assessment that may include some combination of functional lab testing and analysis of blood, urine, stool, salivary and/or genetics. This comprehensive physical evaluation will allow us to get to know how your physiology is functioning, and where your body is most calling for assistance.
We create a personalized treatment plan, and stay with you along the way with guidance and coaching.
We partner with you! We collaborate with you, with a goal of getting you feeling and functioning better. Among our many roles, one of our most important roles is as medical, holistic and functional coaches guiding you through the steps to restore and optimize your health. Like an athlete that requires regular training to see improvements, you also need a plan to optimize your health. Our plans will include weekly and monthly steps with regular check-ins and follow-ups to ensure we can effectively stay on top of changes, observe what your body and life are telling us–or not telling us–and adapt, move, and flow with that feedback as things change, former supports become unnecessary, and new needs present themselves.
We help you create a team.
Wherever you are on the spectrum of illness and function, feeling better and achieving optimal health and performance usually requires multiple practitioners over the course of the journey. We have an in-house team of providers at Be Vital who can support you across a wide range of needs, but as we assess what’s going on and customize your plan, sometimes your needs will extend beyond the scope of our in-house team. When this happens, we are glad to help connect you to valuable “expert players” from a variety of specialties and fields, to support you in achieving your health and performance goals.
My Philosophy. Our Philosophy.
Functional Medicine
Functional Medicine (FM) is an approach to medicine that addresses the underlying causes of disease and imbalances using a systems-based approach. FM practitioners understand the complexity of the body and that the different systems interact with each other. For example, a FM approach understands that your immune system is also linked to your hormonal system which is also connected to your digestive system. FM considers biochemical (the chemical reactions in your body), environmental and genetic influences and treats the whole person.
Naturopathic Medicine
Naturopathic Medicine (NM) is a distinct health care profession that emphasizes the body’s natural healing processes, disease prevention and the use of traditional and natural remedies to support healing. NM focuses on removing obstacles to healing and thriving by using the least invasive and most effective methods, always remembering that nature knows best. Other important principles of NM are:
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Doctor as Teacher: educate patients and encourage self-responsibility
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Treat the Whole Person: not just the one part currently having symptoms
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Prevention: do not wait for symptoms to seek medical care, get a healthy baseline and evaluation to catch things BEFORE symptoms develop.
Nursing
Nursing is an art and a science, the heart meats the brain. The broad scope of nursing and nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale inspired Melanie to advocate for medically underserved populations and to embrace simple, yet effective, diet and lifestyle approaches that support optimal health. Through listening to patient stories, nurses can identify critical healing needs and ensure every patient receives the best possible care. When Melanie says, “this is the art of medicine,” it means her decision is informed by both science and a nursing insight grounded in a sincere desire to see patients thrive.
FM, NM and Nursing philosophies have forged Melanie’s unique integrative approach which is preventive, patient-centered, root-cause oriented, promotes the body’s ability for healing via conventional and natural therapies and driven by a desire for thriving health and optimal performance.