{"id":14578,"date":"2019-03-18T07:47:51","date_gmt":"2019-03-18T12:47:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wholehealthchicago.com\/?p=14578"},"modified":"2022-03-21T15:26:24","modified_gmt":"2022-03-21T20:26:24","slug":"meet-our-new-integrative-nurse-practitioner-wendy-ploegstra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wholehealthchicago.com\/blog\/2019\/03\/18\/meet-our-new-integrative-nurse-practitioner-wendy-ploegstra","title":{"rendered":"Meet Our New Integrative Nurse Practitioner Wendy Ploegstra"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WholeHealth Chicago is extremely fortunate to welcome Advanced Nurse Practitioner Wendy Ploegstra<\/a> into our group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s take a look at her credentials. First, she starts in nursing, receiving her bachelor\u2019s at Calvin College in Grand Rapids before moving to Chicago and enrolling at Rush University, where she receives her master\u2019s as a nurse practitioner (with certification in family practice).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this degree, her license allows her to practice just like an MD family practitioner. 2019 marks her 11th<\/sup> year practicing primary care family medicine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Wendy\u2019s education didn\u2019t stop there. Along the way she realized (as I myself did decades ago) that most chronic illness emerges as a consequence of unhealthful lifestyle choices. I must remember to ask Wendy when her \u201caha!\u201d moment occurred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mine was during hospital rounds one morning when I realized that each of the 20 or so patients I\u2019d visited was seriously ill from one or more totally preventable conditions, like diabetes, emphysema, heart failure, and cirrhosis. All these illnesses could have been prevented had someone sat down with them years earlier and taught them what a healthy lifestyle actually entailed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, the care these patients had received could be summarized by the words, \u201cHere, take this.\u201d As in \u201cYou\u2019re now diabetic. Take this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Probably Wendy had a comparable moment
<\/strong>Maybe it occurred when she was writing out a patient\u2019s prescription and she realized this person would be adding still more drugs for the rest of her life. Or maybe it was when she reviewed a patient\u2019s eating habits and knew a lifetime of obesity and diabetes lay ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In some moment she said to herself or her colleagues or her family, \u201cMy approach to medicine has to change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Wendy enrolled in the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine post-graduate course, which is based on rethinking health and illness in terms of evidence-based patient management techniques.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evidence-based means clinically tested and proven. Advice like \u201cEating more vegetables is good for you\u201d didn\u2019t come from inside a fortune cookie, but rather as a result of analyzing tens of thousands of diet histories and their effect on health. At the institute, physicians and nurses learn how to effectively incorporate into their practices nutrition, exercise, stress reduction, and a multitude of other choices that get to the root cause of illness. After extensive training, in 2018 Wendy became a board-certified Diplomate in Lifestyle Medicine<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During this post-graduate education, she was also seeing patients in a primary care setting. Remember, she has 11 years\u2019 experience in family medicine. And then, about five years ago, she realized the importance of integrative medicine, incorporating alternative therapies instead of rushing to the prescription pad or the operating room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Slowly, steadily, and on her own Wendy learned the basics of the various so-called alternative medicine fields, when to refer a patient for chiropractic, homeopathy, Chinese medicine, or Healing Touch, and how to use nutritional supplements and herbs instead of prescription drugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interesting to me, her sampling of all this \u201calternative\u201d medicine paralleled my own decades ago when I was setting up WholeHealth Chicago<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wendy\u2019s efforts didn\u2019t go unnoticed by the medical and nursing profession. Earlier this year she was nominated and recognized as a Five-Star Top Nurse in the World by the International Nurses Association.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From your perspective
<\/strong>Now, a bio like this is undeniably impressive, but what does it actually mean for you, the patient?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine for a moment the qualities you\u2019d like in an ideal primary care provider. You\u2019d like someone who gets to know you as a person, who would actually remember who you were from your previous visit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019d like someone who asks not only how you\u2019re feeling, but who also reviews a checklist of healthful behaviors, like your eating habits, level of physical activity, and even if you\u2019re current on dental care and vision testing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019d like someone who could perform a good physical exam, including a Pap smear and maybe having your ears flushed out if they\u2019re clogged with wax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you have health issues, you\u2019d like someone capable of exploring more options than sending a stack of prescriptions over to your pharmacy. You\u2019d like someone who actually might discuss intelligently–not dismissively\u2014medical information you read on the internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But you\u2019d also like someone available if you became suddenly ill and who could refer you to an appropriate specialist, not one limited to a particular health system, but the best specialist in our area for your particular condition. Someone who could even refer you to Mayo Clinic with a phone call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I admit my own primary care practice is pretty full these days. If you call for a check-up or with a health problem it sometimes takes a while to get an appointment. Wendy works in the examining room right next door to mine and she knows I\u2019m as close as a tap on the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, if you send me an email through the Portal with a health issue for which I feel you need to be seen and I answer \u201cI think Wendy has an opening,\u201d feel comfortable with that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will now give her the best compliment one physician can give another: Wendy knows her stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Be well,
David Edelberg, MD<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WholeHealth Chicago is extremely fortunate to welcome Advanced Nurse Practitioner Wendy Ploegstra into our group. Let\u2019s take a look at her credentials. First, she starts in nursing, receiving her bachelor\u2019s at Calvin College in Grand Rapids before moving to Chicago and enrolling at Rush University, where she receives her master\u2019s as a nurse practitioner (with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2087,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,2,2336,50,2335,130,3],"tags":[2032,2033,2034,1860,2035],"class_list":["post-14578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alternative-therapies","category-blog","category-healing-touch","category-healthy-lifestyle","category-homeopathy","category-integrative-medicine","category-knowledge-base","tag-integrative-care","tag-integrative-nurse-practitioner","tag-life-style-medicine","tag-primary-care","tag-wendy-ploegstra"],"yoast_head":"\r\nMeet Our New Integrative Nurse Practitioner Wendy Ploegstra<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"description\" 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