The back cover of Stories of Healing: A Family Doctor’s Journal by East Wenatchee resident Robert A Anderson, MD, (retired) has two influential recommendations. One is from Christiane Northrup, MD, Ob/Gyn, who called it “a fantastic book written by one of the finest holistic doctors I’ve ever known.” She knows books: she authored three New York Times Bestsellers including The Wisdom of Menopause.  Bernard Siegel, MD, author of 12 best sellers beginning with Love, Medicine and Miracles, wrote, “This book needs to be read by everyone.” 

 Anderson’s book is a memoir of patients selected from his 40-year family practice in Edmonds who transformed his original physician’s perspective after graduating from Washington’s medical school. He converted from believing he was solely a medical expert with “an opportunity and duty to treat and educate my patients” [to] “realize that my patients were simultaneously teaching me. I believe the energy of all avenues to recovery, cure and healing involves the potential for self-healing from within.” 

The stories begin with medical protocol and end with patient success. He describes symptoms, tests and reports from specialists. After prescribed medications were either unsatisfactory, or where other treatments could be tried simultaneously, he confers with patients about optional approaches they could choose. Those options were based on research he’d reviewed and treatments he found effective for himself or patients. Examples include, zinc-based cream for warts, self-imaging to relieve anxiety and daily dosages of magnesium to prevent and treat heart failure.  

Stories of heart care riveted my attention because of my cardiomyopathy. The congestive heart failure of 65-year-old Audrey (names are fictitious) deteriorated to 11 percent efficiency from a normal 60 percent over five years while she was on 14 medications. She needed to catch her breath every five stair-steps. Anderson states, “Her downhill course allowed me to be comfortable in sketching out some ‘why-not’ options which I knew would not interfere with any of the treatments her cardiologist had recommended.” The story list vitamins, enzymes and minerals he suggested she try and references his book published by McGraw-Hill in 2001, Clinician’s Guide to Holistic Medicine. Nine years later her heart efficiency maintained an above-normal 75 percent and her cardiologist eliminated all medications save one. 

The first forty stories have self-healing themes. Patients chose to different lifestyles and nutritional intake to help heal themselves. They collaborated with Anderson to reduce his ideal recommendations to actions they could maintain. He found they healed better than if they ignored his recommendations and got no benefits. They also worked to recognize whether their particular illness occurred at a particular time. And Anderson explains how each case taught him another lesson. 

The Mysterium section contains incredulous experiences tangentally related to self-healing. A hospital-assigned pediatrician arrived to give inpatient care to Anderson’s newborn granddaughter. The pediatrician mysteriously returned to ask her parent’s permission to diagnose meningitis, which led to quick treatments that avoided brain damage. After two follow-up visits with her parents, the pediatrician disappeared. Archived records of the pediatrician’s inpatient care are missing. 

Anderson told me he included the Mysterium stories for two reasons. He believes we should pay more attention to anomalies because they’ve catapulted medical advancements throughout history, such as the discovery of penicillin. He also said, “Weird things happen and I’m more accepting and honoring of patients’ experiences, particularly when one happens to a ‘non-zany’ nurse in my office,” referring to her dream in the last story of the book. 

Anderson wrote this book for patients following three research books for physicians. He said, “Stories are important for people.”

They’ve inspired me and may inspire others. I’m giving them to my children for Christmas.