Former Critically Ill Patient champions Lifestyle Integration in Healthcare
Amsterdam, Netherlands – chermaine, a former patient battling a severe illness, has demonstrated a remarkable enhancement in her quality of life through lifestyle and nutritional changes, and is now spearheading efforts to integrate similar approaches into standard hospital care. Her personal journey has fueled a mission to expand treatment beyond traditional medicine,offering hope for countless individuals facing serious health challenges.
while teh precise financial benefits remain secondary, Chermaine‘s experience underscores a critical shift in healthcare ideology: improving quality of life is achievable even when a cure isn’t. This comes at a time when chronic illnesses are on the rise globally, placing increasing strain on healthcare systems and demanding innovative solutions. Chermaine’s work aims to address this by providing a complementary,proactive approach to patient wellbeing,possibly reducing reliance on solely pharmaceutical interventions and empowering individuals to take control of their health.
Chermaine, recently promoted, is now establishing a lifestyle clinic at the Amsterdam UMC, where she earned her PhD.Initially focused on patients wiht pulmonary arterial hypertension, she envisions expanding the clinic’s reach to encompass other lung and heart diseases, and ultimately, to anyone facing serious illness. “I’m really catching up on everything I missed all those years I was sick,” she shared,highlighting her dedication to translating her personal experience into tangible benefits for others.
Her core belief centers on the distinction between “getting better” and “being healed.” ”Now the focus is mainly on medicines and treatments to heal people, and that is absolutely critically important,” Chermaine explained. ”But what I have learned: getting better is not the same as healing. Curing is not always possible, but you can often make people better with nutrition and lifestyle.” She advocates for integrating nutritional and lifestyle interventions as a standard component of hospital processes, believing it holds the potential to significantly enhance patient outcomes.