Hello! I’m Dr Meryl McBride, and I am a licensed Naturopathic Doctor living on beautiful Orcas Island, Washington. You can find me practicing at the Healing Arts Center in Eastsound.
I was first introduced to Naturopathic Medicine when I was struggling through my own medical issues in my twenties. I grew up in the mountains of California and Arizona and lived for 15 years in Seattle. I have always loved being in Nature and had considered allopathic medicine as a career, but I found myself at a point when I was sick and I didn’t know how to help myself. And someone suggested Naturopathy to me. I loved everything about this medicine: its focus on each individual as unique, looking at the whole body and not just a sick part, and I loved its modalities (herbs, remedies, diet, movement) that are just as dynamic as we are. My background is in ecology and evolutionary biology. Unbeknownst to me then, but studying ecology, which is all about relationships, primed me to think about my future patients. The human body is all about relationships. Such as the microbiome, those “bugs” protecting and producing energy for us. The relationship between different systems like the gut and the nervous system. The relationships between nutrients and specific minerals that facilitate their absorption. And of course the relationships of our larger ecosystems such as our community and the environment and how that effects our health. I have learned that health is a matter of ecology; the relationships within you, around you, and your relationship with the unfolding movement of the cosmos. My whole life has taken me here. This is the medicine I know, I love, and I practice.
Beyond medicine, I have a wonderful husband and we have two young children. I try to live my medicine; I move dynamically, I take time to be with myself in meditation, I’m always learning in books and classes, I live creatively through different mediums and I definitely get my hands dirty trying to grow fresh real food. Most of the time though I’m running after my kids. My family and I cook organically grown whole food meals, play regularly, harvest medicinal plants and spend as much time as we can out in the woods and waters around our island home.
Although I am trained as a PCP (Primary Care Physician), I work with patients struggling to heal chronic health conditions with lifestyle changes and nervous system regulation practices. Given the limitations of my space, I do not provide services such as phlebotomy or annual physical exams like gynecological or prostate exams.
Life is a never-ending journey of discovery and growth and I would be honored to work with you as a guide and fellow traveler on your journey to health.
my personal approach to medicine
I believe that as a doctor, my role is to act as a catalyst and a witness in the healing journeys of my patients. I am not the healer, the healer is within each of us. My commitment to those who seek to work with me, is to provide that guidance with honesty, openness and a relentless dedication to provide what I can to assist them to live the life they want. I am a doctor who has been through pain and dis-ease and I work with people who are desiring to move out of that story and into health and freedom.
As a Naturopathic doctor, I understand that taking the time to listen to my patients is part of the cure. By listening to my patients, I am often able to hear them speak not only the true cause of their disease, but I am able to hear what they are truly striving for. That may be eating differently, needing more nervous system support, the conditions that indicate a specific herb or the limitations of specific stressors in their life. I am focused on my patients with individualized care, because each of us have different needs and conditions for health and different obstacles to cure. I use simple medicines; diet, water, movement, nature, herbs, homeopathic medicines, hands-on therapy and education to achieve amazing results. My goal for my patients is to gain a joyful and fulfilled sense of self. My patients are not just given a prescription, they are part of determining and creating their health.
Ultimately my purpose comes down to this. I am deeply in love with this planet we live on; I am awe-struck daily by the beauty and diversity of our world and all the other species that live on it. I believe that if through our work together my patients can learn to live without internal dysregulation, disease or pain, then they will live with more freedom and joy. A person living a life of joy and freedom (what I call their highest Mountain Self), then they give back to the world creating harmonious, sustainable, productive and loving societies that in turn take care of each other and this Earth we live on. “On every act, the balance of the whole depends, and we must learn to keep the balance” (thank you Ursula Le Guin). I am grateful whenever people show up to take care of themselves, knowing that taking the courage to make small changes results in boundless change to the world at large.
“Wisdom one learns among men, but the higher qualities of the soul one acquired in the mountains.”
-Mongolian proverb