Healing Waters
Dr. Siobhan Hanlon has spent a lot of time on the water. Born in Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, her childhood was spent on her father’s boats docked on the bay. She spent countless hours on a ferry commuting to Bridgeport from her apartment in New York. And when she can make time for it, going to the beach and fishing with her husband are her favorite activities. So it makes sense that she learned about Naturopathic Medicine on a trip to the beach in Aruba.
When Dr. Siobhan was an undergraduate at Stony Brook University, she enrolled in a Study Abroad class called Ancestral Medicine simply because it was being offered in Aruba. The teacher was an old medicine man. They called him a doctor, and he was very passionate about using nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle changes to achieve health. This medicine man would talk about the importance of walking around the beach and swimming in the water. He used to adjust people’s bodies, and his patients told stories of how he healed them using natural substances from the earth. Many of them were able to get off their medications. For Dr. Siobhan, the concept of using natural substances to heal was an exciting breakthrough. Inspired by her trip, she graduated with a doctorate from the University of Bridgeport College of Naturopathic Medicine and went on to earn her master’s in Nutrition from UBC, as well.
After graduation, she began working at Inner Source Health in Huntington, Long Island, a naturopathic and Chinese medicine group practice. Although Dr. Siobhan has a general practice and enjoys the range and diversity of patients who see her, it is seeing her pediatric patients that gives her the greatest satisfaction. The opportunity to teach parents and young children about nutrition is very important to her. She believes empathically that the earlier you can educate children about their bodies, the more ailments you can prevent later in life. Many of the common childhood complaints she sees can be prevented and treated by simply avoiding inflammatory foods and taking basic nutrients that balance immune function. By doing this early on, the need for excessive amounts of antibiotics and other medications is decreased.
“I love having the ability to offer New Yorkers another option for healthcare,” Dr. Siobhan states. “Naturopathic Medicine works to understand what each patient needs on a physical, emotional and spiritual level. This need is then met using substances that replete the body and bring about balance. Being able to personalize a protocol for a patient ensures they are safely taking what they need to restore health.”
In her practice, nutritional advice is mandatory for all of Dr. Siobhan’s patients. She uses homeopathy and herbs as well. Furthermore, she encourages her patients to work with personal trainers so that they learn good exercise technique. By suggesting dietary changes and giving them supplements, Dr. Siobhan sees excess weight start coming off of her patients naturally.
In her practice using evidence-based Naturopathic Medicine, Dr. Siobhan continues the tradition of natural medicine she first encountered in Aruba, following the call of the water.
Read more about Dr. Siobhan here: https://innersourcehealth.com/Siobhan.aspx.
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Written by Patricia Pimentel Selassie, ND, CNS