As a registered nurse working in trauma and rehabilitation centers in Kansas, Jennifer Shepherd cared for patients who weren’t benefiting from the pain medications prescribed to them.
She noticed a pattern that prompted her to detour from her 13-year career in the traditional medical field. No matter what type of pain or medical problem the patients were experiencing, they tended to be prescribed the same opiates or steroid pain relievers. Yet some didn’t want to take their medication due to side effects associated with them, and others weren’t getting enough pain relief, she said.
“I couldn’t figure out why I had 20 patients with the same pills,” she said. “At that point, I started noticing that Western medicine wasn’t helping as many patients as I thought it should.”
