Practitioner Profile Finding Our Way Back to Health

Bob Huttinga Empowers Others at The Healing Center

By Bill Peterson

For physician assistant Bob Huttinga of The Healing Center in Lakeview, thinking outside the box is as natural as the rhythm of his heart. His mind thinks laterally and his approach to health care empowers patients with alternative ways to reclaim and optimize their health.

He explains that we’re all born with a sound "constitution," an innate state of health. In the absence of any genetic disorder, individuals either choose to support this vital foundation or see it gradually diminish over time, like a melting glacier.

Teaching others and illuminating options for reconstituting their health serves as Huttinga’s guiding principal. He maintains that "When a patient is empowered with knowledge and insight, they know when they’re stuck, and are best able, with the support of an open-minded health care professional, to find their way back to health."

For example, Huttinga finds homeopathy a profoundly effective modality for treating patients who either can’t seem to get help from modern medicine or find the side affects of medications alarming. Here a "like cures like" principal applies. "Often homeopathy can serve as a quick and safe remedy," he says. He points out that typical traumas, viruses and stress tend to erode one’s constitution, and homeopathy rebuilds what’s been lost.

He admits that not all of his patients are open to a natural approach, and as a physician assistant he is authorized to also prescribe medications and use modern diagnostic procedures. "I don’t want to see anyone suffer," he says.

As a physician’s assistant since 1976 and one deeply rooted in traditional medicine, Huttinga says he has seen it all. What he could not foresee was how venturing into a simple "mind control" training program in the mid-1980s would permanently change the course of his life as well as his overall approach to health care.

It was at a Silva Method™ course that he first learned practical exercises he could use to regularly quiet and focus his mind. A subtle epiphany surprised his entire way of thinking. "I used to believe that we had to accept what life gave us and simply deal with it," Huttinga modestly shares. "Now I realized just how limiting that belief was for my own life as well as the lives of my patients."

This new awareness radically changed his method of treatment and patient care. Simply eliminating symptoms without identifying and treating the root causes now seemed too superficial and wholly inadequate. The student within him returned with zeal, as did the teacher.

Huttinga launched on a fervent study of nutrition and herbs as a physician assistant for the late Grant Born, a doctor of osteopathy, founder of the Born Preventive Health Care Clinic in Grand Rapids, and one of West Michigan’s leading physicians in a natural approach to health care. Huttinga treasures the insights and experience he gained there.

As a certified Silva Method instructor, Huttinga spent eight years teaching students how to utilize the power of their mind to positively affect the state of their body and reduce stress. In the course of his practice he’s seen how a person’s state of mind can dramatically reduce or promote chronic stress-related conditions like high-blood pressure, diabetes, ulcers, depression and anxiety.

Today Bob Huttinga approaches every patient case as a compassionate investigator, with an open mind and a toolbox of natural and complementary treatments designed to truly achieve optimal health. His mission proceeds in synch with the natural rhythms his patient as well as this planet. He’s come to passionately believe that "adopting a natural approach to health and life is no longer an option, it is imperative."

Bob Huttinga is a certified Physician Assistant licensed to practice medicine with physician supervision. The Healing Center is located at 352 S. Lincoln Ave. For information call 989-352-6500, email or visit TheHealingCenterofLakeview.com.

Source: Originally published in Natural Awakenings West Michigan April 2007 Natural Home issue.