Holistic healthcare.
Many talk about it.
Dr. Arjuna Veeravagu puts it into practice … his practice, at Whistler Wellness.
It’s a commitment he made after deciding to provide care—as both a naturopathic doctor and acupuncturist—tailored specifically to his patients’ individual situations and needs.
With the naturopathic approach, Veeravagu says he is always looking at patients’ diet, lifestyle, stress levels, exercise, sleep and community to assess the potential factors involved in their illness, and address their condition in the least invasive way possible. As a naturopathic doctor, he also utilizes physical examinations and lab testing to assist with patient assessment.
The journey to providing this style of healthcare began when Veeravagu experienced his own chronic illness after graduating from university and working at the University of California at Berkley as a nutritional genetics researcher.
At the time, conventional medicine wasn’t able to help him, so he turned to naturopathic medicine and acupuncture which yielded a positive outcome by addressing the root causes of his illness. “Plus, I realized I wasn’t cut out to be a lab researcher,” he says. “I enjoyed working directly with people and decided to study these systems of healthcare that helped me so much.”
Following his studies of naturopathic medicine and traditional Chinese medicine in Portland, Oregon, in 2002, Veeravagu opened a practice in downtown Vancouver that he still owns and manages. Four years ago, he moved to Whistler full-time and, last year, opened Whistler Wellness in the Village. There, he has assembled a team of experienced practitioners—two other acupuncturists Chris Parsons and Chris Power and a massage therapist Anita D’Onghia—who, together, offer a collaborative approach to care.
“I love the diversity of people and conditions I see, plus the challenge of connecting with each patient—some of whom have been suffering with chronic issues for years —and trying to solve that puzzle of what’s causing their illness.
“It was always a dream of mine to live in a small mountain town,” Veeravagu says, adding he’d been coming to Whistler for many years prior, and especially values the outdoor mountain lifestyle after growing up in New York City.
He also enjoys the opportunity to embrace the outdoors lifestyle of Whistler as an avid snowboarder as well as a soccer and tennis player, and the recent opportunity to resurrect his past hobby as a DJ.
“DJing was my night job in medical school,” he says with a laugh, “which I realized I was missing, so I started playing out again this summer in Whistler under my new moniker ‘Doc Rhythmo.’”
For more information about the services available at Whistler Wellness, visit their website at whistlerwellness.ca.
