Missoula's Premier Concierge Medicine Practice

   (406) 541-7040   2315 McDonald Avenue, Suite 110, Missoula, MT 59801

Health and Disease

What is health? Ms Webster defines Health as: “a condition of being sound in body, mind, or spirit … freedom from physical disease or pain.” A more colloquial standard may mean something different. Does it mean freedom from all disease? Not having chronic disease? Managing the symptoms of the ailment of the day? Not having a bad flu? Or is it something different yet again? 

Disease itself has its own definition.  Again, we may have our own vision and definition that does not correlate with Ms Webster’s. She defines disease as “a condition of the living animal or plant body or one of its parts that impairs normal functioning and is typically manifested by distinguishing signs and symptoms.”

When speaking of health and disease, we may believe it is a bad flu, and our success in avoiding it makes us healthy for the year. It may mean one of the many chronic ailments that can grow from a nagging semi-awareness to the thing that defines and rules our days. Or it may mean not feeling your utmost, not being free from the background fatigue, not sleeping restfully, having daily worry, anxiety, and constant aches that hound us day to day. 

At Petersen Concierge Medical, we have our own definition of health and disease. In our view, health is not the absence of disease; it is not the absence of all ailments; it is not freedom from every seasonal flu or malady. The PRESENCE of resilience, vitality, and well-being would allow one to withstand life’s challenges with grace and purpose. We view health as a slick, fast sailboat with a deep keel that can withstand storms. A storm may come, and the boat may heel to the side with the rails in the water, but it won’t capsize.   

Our underlying integrity, allowing for our ability to withstand life’s stressors, comprises interconnected parts that cannot function without each other. In principle, it is a four-legged stool that cannot stand on less than four legs; its design does not allow it. We need to have proper staged and restful sleep, proper nutrition, good activity, and our emotional house in order.  Each one of the parts cannot function without another. 

Maintaining, optimizing, and strengthening the four-legged stool, the deeper keel on the boat takes work. That work cannot be done alone.  Time, in-depth analysis, high-level diagnostics, comprehensive review, and in-depth exploration are needed. A deeper relationship with your physician, more lengthy conversations, the utility of multi-modal tools, and healthcare integration are the comprehensive approaches that stabilize the keel and the stool.

Petersen Concierge Medial Practice embodies that approach. No other medical practice provides that individualized and bespoke care. No other type of medical provider has the time and space to delve into the details, focus on wellness and prevention, take a comprehensive approach, and not only manage the current status of disease but also address what is needed for the future – the resilience and vitality to weather the life’s storms.