Every year I post a similar blog, just tweak some resolutions and add a few more. This year, I am hoping that 2012 will be the year that the Wellness Revolution really kicks in.

When I went to medical school, nobody ever taught me that medicine was a spiritual practice - but it is. Or at least, in Pink Medicine, it will be.

You might not think so. After all, philosophers like Descartes have been perpetuating the notion of mind-body dualism, suggesting that body, mind, and spirit have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

If you haven’t noticed, our health care system in the U.S. is imploding. I mean - things are bad. I’m a doctor, and yet, because I was diagnosed with high blood pressure in my twenties, and because my husband accidentally cut two fingers off his left hand with a table saw, we’re uninsurable under a traditional family health insurance program. We’re still on COBRA, paying $1200/month until it runs out in two years and we’ll have to scramble to find a way to stay insured.

When I decided to put my white coat back on, I committed to reclaiming what I love about medicine and ditching what I’ve come to despise. In fact, after leaving medicine - supposedly for good - I had to expand and redefine “health” and change the whole way I think about practicing medicine in order to feel proud of my MD title and rekindle my on-again-off-again relationship with health care. Now that I am working with patients again - in my own way - I remember how much I truly love medicine and how I felt the call to serve at the young age of seven.