The natural approach to healing

By Shasta Kearns Moore

The Southwest Community Connection, Jan 1, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Shasta Kearns Moore / The Southwest Community Connection

Gil and Christie Winkelman have opened a new natural health clinic in the Multnomah Offices. The couple founded and run the nation's best-used online database for natural medicine, iCaduceus.

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MULTNOMAH – Gil and Christie Winkelman just got out of medical school in June, but if you’re imagining 20-somethings with their hands poised over prescription pads, think again.

The 38- and 41-year-old married couple just opened a natural health clinic in the Multnomah Offices at 2929 Multnomah Boulevard with two of their classmates – Shani Fox and Juniper Martin – from the National College of Natural Medicine (NCNM) in downtown Portland.

The Winkelmans both have backgrounds in psychotherapy and Gil Winkelman spent 10 years as a computer programmer. That knowledge helped him create what is today the best-used online database for natural medicine in the country, “iCaduceus, The Clinician’s Alternative.”

Dr. Dick Thom, the Winkelmans’ advisor and NCNM professor said there’s nothing quite like iCaduceus.

“It’s definitely the type of thing that is unique in the industry,” Thom said. “There’s really nothing that iCaduceus isn’t doing as far as providing information for the alternative health field, not only to students but to practicing physicians.”

The project started as a study tool, but today has grown into a multi-platform Web site that lists the symptoms, diagnoses and studies surrounding 400 conditions and corresponding naturopathic treatments. The site has 1,200 subscribers across the country.

“As naturopathic doctors, we learn so many treatments that it can be overwhelming at times,” Christie Winkelman said. The Clinician’s Alternative has articles on homeopathy, nutrition, botanicals, etc., – all of which have been written and reviewed by members of its 32 editors and contributors or its seven-member medical advisory board.

“We wanted to make that bridge between allopathic and naturopathic doctors,” Gil Winkelman said. “It’s time for that. It’s time for us all to get together for the benefit of patients.”

The road to natural medicine

It was Christie Winkelman who first decided to switch career paths after three heartbreaking miscarriages in 1998. She saw that allopathic medicine only had hormones to offer “and I didn’t want to take hormones.”

Christie Winkelman began to see a naturopath and a nutritionist and “between those two, I was able to get back into balance.

“I felt happier, I felt more energetic and more optimistic and I realized that we’re not really taught how to take care of ourselves,” she said. (The Winkelmans now have two children: an 8-year-old and a 5-year-old.)

After experiencing that type of treatment, she discovered she wanted to help her mental health clients get back into balance, too, and decided to enroll at NCNM.

Gil Winkelman enrolled the following year and the two quickly distinguished themselves among the student body, said Thom, their advisor and professor.

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