Balancing Life and Medicine

From Combat to Care: A Veteran's Path to Healing with Acupuncture

• Dr. DeWayne Baugus • Season 1 • Episode 7

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Ever wondered how a combat veteran transitions into a healthcare provider specializing in acupuncture? Our guest, Dr. DeWayne Baugus, offers a fascinating glimpse into his journey from military service to becoming a licensed acupuncture physician. With a background in nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare instruction, Dr. Baugus shares how his military training shaped his unique approach to healthcare. He recounts his initial foray into patient care as a massage therapist and how his experiences have given him a deeper understanding of the emotional and psychological aspects of managing stress and health challenges.

In this enlightening episode, Dr. Baugus opens up about the transformative power of acupuncture, particularly for cancer patients enduring chemotherapy and radiation. He provides compelling insights into the use of acupuncture within the U.S. military, revealing its effectiveness and legitimacy in pain management on the battlefield. Through poignant stories and practical advice, Dr. Baugus highlights the integration of Eastern and Western medical practices, making a powerful case for acupuncture’s role in modern healthcare. Join us for this captivating conversation that underscores how diverse experiences can shape a holistic approach to wellness.

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Dr. DeWayne Baugus:

Welcome to Balancing Life in Medicine. I'm Dr DeWayne Baugus. I'm an acupuncture physician licensed in the state of Florida, but I'm also I have a practice in Tulsa, Oklahoma. So I'm working in my native state, where I grew up, where I was raised, and I wanted to discuss a little bit about my training. So, in other words, who am I? Am I just some guy that does acupuncture? The answer is no. To talk about my education a little bit is, I think, informative as far as you understanding my mind, my thought process, as far as you understanding my mind, my thought process, how I'm looking at each individual patient and what information I'm using to help you find a healthier, happier way of life. So I'm a veteran, I'm a combat vet, I was in the military for many years. I have a background in understanding emotions, emotional imbalances. In fact, I personally have been able to help manage my own PTSD, anxiety and depression through multiple methods, not just one. It's not just one thing that fits us all, just finding answers wherever I could. I think, just like anybody out there, is trying to find what helps them feel better. We don't really care what it is, as long as it's healthy for us and we can do it. We want to. We want to make our life easier and healthier.

Dr. DeWayne Baugus:

One of the things that I did in the military was communications. I started off in the communications field. I started off in the communications field and learned real quick about electronics and circuit boards and antennas and radiation and all kinds of fun things. In fact I was with the Patriot Missile System, desert Storm era. So if that dates me a little bit, so be it. Some of you guys have never even heard of that. Maybe you were born way after. I'm just getting used to that. So with that came a lot of understanding of multiple cultures. My experiences overseas, the training in the military, was really good and actually helps me today with understanding how to look at the body. One of the things that I did get into while in the military besides communication was I went to school to be a nuclear, biological and chemical warfare instructor. So I didn't just do communications, I did a whole lot more as well as training and development. The military toward the end of the last few years that I was serving put me in positions to where I was helping train individuals on desert survival and warfare tactics.

Dr. DeWayne Baugus:

I was a part of a team here in the United States after 9-11. That started training our soldiers and getting them ready for a different world. Essentially Going to the sandbox is what we call it, going overseas. But that entailed not just showing you how to do things, but it also entailed the right mindset, encouragement, compassion, believe it or not, understanding what they're going to be dealing with. So a psychological understanding of how to ready yourself, prepare yourself for an upcoming battle, and I've seen that translate into my practice. Today I have patients that come in and they're battling so many different things. They've got a cancer diagnosis, they've got some kind of illness that they're dealing with and my job is to support them and encourage them and get them ready for that battle because they will win it and they will fight it and I will encourage them to do so.

Dr. DeWayne Baugus:

The other fun stuff the NBC, what we call nuclear, biological, chemical side, the communication side that was the very beginning of me really learning about healthcare, the mind, the body, how things work from a military perspective and of course that was just a small sliver. After the military I went through my understanding of emotions and navigating emotions, understanding them, gaining an emotional IQ, but also learning about how I could help others. I found that there was gratification in helping others, not just working jobs that I just didn't feel fulfilled in. So that's one of the ways that I got into healthcare. It's not because I was an officer in the military, actually I. The ways that I got into healthcare it's not because I was an officer in the military Actually I was not. I was enlisted. So I became a physician after I got out of the military. It's not an area that I went into initially. It's something that I got into as I seen the need for it in myself as well as helping those in my community.

Dr. DeWayne Baugus:

So the first big bulk of training that I went into was in Florida and it was as a massage therapist. I learned that working with the body, helping people relieve pain through massage and body work, was it, was. It was great, it was tremendous. It was gratification of helping people change their life by just helping them relax Right. And the other thing is, as a massage therapist I learned a lot about people. I mean you're stuck in a little room with someone for like an hour to two hours and you're doing massages on them.

Dr. DeWayne Baugus:

Sometimes you hear things you don't want to hear, yeah, and then there's other other things that come up and you start to learn. You start to learn what's normal for one isn't normal for another as far as their lifestyle, their stress, their perspective of life, and that's something that you learn to respect. I learned to respect that because that respect came from seeing how it hurt people if it was the wrong perspective. If it was the right perspective, how it could change someone's whole existence. It could change their trajectory in their life into something great, instead of maybe where they were going in a negative way, seeing people change their mindset and I refer back to the Bible when it comes to that repenting or metanoia right To change one's mind, to change how we think about something. Sometimes it's as simple as changing how we look at something, and that's what I've enjoyed learning over the years, and massage was one of the first places that I got to see that. I got to see people who were bound up in stress and really had little to stress about, but they didn't know that their world consisted of maintaining a certain level of stress and that was their normal. When I met others who were CEOs of massive companies and they should have had all the stress in the world, yet they didn't. They managed it. They seen it as a blessing to be able to serve so many and to be in a position to provide a job for individuals that were supporting families. In other words, completely different perspectives and they all had different backgrounds.

Dr. DeWayne Baugus:

Within the first three years of working as a massage therapist, I got my hands on a little over 5,000 patients and it was great because I was working for if anyone's familiar with Massage Envy, that's when it very it was just brand new and I was one of the first 15 therapists that they hired to work at their locations in Sarasota, florida. So it was a demographic that was very interesting, from youth multimillionaires to yeah, I had several 105-year-old patients and all kinds of wisdom and knowledge that someday I'll get there. I hear the words, you know. We hear wisdom from others, but we're not ready for it yet. Yeah, expect that for the rest of your life. That's always going to be there. Some things just come with time. But I got a lot of words of wisdom thrown at me while I was working with those great patients.

Dr. DeWayne Baugus:

There were clients then as a massage therapist, but I will say that there was something that changed my trajectory, my career path. Working with so many individuals, I had a lady who was a client of mine and she referred a good friend of hers that she had met at a daycare and this was a game changer. This story really was something that was pivotal in my life because it changed everything about my outlook and my perspective. After working on this lady and the lady her friend that she had referred, for several months, interestingly, they both developed breast cancer. And not only that, it was a weird one, they developed breast cancer in the same breast, same location, at the same time and I had all kinds of questions about that, because there comes a point in massage therapy where you cannot massage someone who's going through cancer treatments. In fact you can make the situation worse and that comes with contraindications for massage therapy. If you're looking at massages and say you have cancer and you're watching this video, understand there's some things that won't help or may make things worse. Please do research on that. So there came a point with those two ladies where I couldn't do massage anymore based on their therapy or their treatments that they were receiving.

Dr. DeWayne Baugus:

But while I was in massage school a few years before, there was a lady that talked about acupuncture. Now I was not interested in acupuncture or oriental medicine. I didn't want anyone getting close to me with needles. I was not into that world. In fact, the introduction that we had in that program was it was, thankfully, very shallow. We didn't do any needling. We didn't do any of that. In Florida it's very strict you can't do acupuncture unless you've got medical degrees and medical boards and licenses. So for acupuncture, thank goodness, because I was terrified of needles and didn't want them touching me.

Dr. DeWayne Baugus:

But in that intake, in that little block of information that I got in massage school, there was a lady who mentioned that acupuncture was great for chemo radiation, the side effects of those treatments that patients are sometimes going to be going through a mess. Their body is going to turn on, they're going to feel horrible, they're going to feel nauseated. There's so many things that come along with neuropathy. There's pain, there's things that happen night sweats. But acupuncture can actually be used while the patient is going through those treatments, although massage cannot be used.

Dr. DeWayne Baugus:

So, as these ladies, I was about to depart from them and say, hey, look, I can't do this anymore. I want you to look up acupuncture, though, because one of the ladies was having a really rough time with her side effects and her cancer treatment. Now the lady I'd mentioned this to, she said that sounds great, I'm going to look them up. I gave him a business card. The other lady Um, the other lady, uh, I found out months later the the woman that I talked to. She came back after her cancer treatments were over and she said thank you for recommending acupuncture. Um, it did great. It helped me get through my treatments. I recommended it to my friend and she told me to take that phooey stuff away. Don't talk to me about that, that stuff doesn't work. And unfortunately, that lady was overwhelmed with the side effects of her treatments, stopped her cancer treatments and she lost her life and left her toddler. And that was a pivotal point in my life.

Dr. DeWayne Baugus:

When I heard months later that this had happened, there's something that hit me. It hit me really hard that I wasn't educated enough to explain what oriental medicine, acupuncture, alternative medicines can offer, can offer. I wasn't educated enough to explain it in Western terms as far as a Western doctor would understand. So I couldn't translate that information to that lady because I didn't have it. I wasn't educated enough. And that changed my perspective. I remember hearing what had happened to her when she stopped her treatments and from that day forward I felt empty. I felt like I was providing a good service, but it just wasn't enough anymore.

Dr. DeWayne Baugus:

So I started looking up information on medical schools, alternative medicine, acupuncture, those kind of things, even though I don't like needles I can't stand them but if they help people then I'll do it. Just like a service member in the military I don't want to go do this, but if it's going to make your life better, if it's going to give you freedom, if you sleep better at night because you're being protected in that safety that comes from a soldier's duty, then I'm very willing to do that, as a physician or whatever school I have to go through. And that's the trajectory I went on. My perspective changed that day and I started pursuing a better education Not better, I would say a more in-depth education on how to help people, a more in-depth education on how to help people. So that's where I got into medical school With my background in the military of training, development, the chemical, biological side of it, my background as far as a body worker and massage therapy. I also started to help other massage therapists that work for Massage Envy, train, understand different methods and practices to maintain their body while they do that kind of physical work. So working with individuals serving others has been a lifelong passion of mine. I enjoy it.

Dr. DeWayne Baugus:

I know there's many questions about whether or not acupuncture works. It does. To give you a little background, there's 48 states at this current time that recognize acupuncture as a method of pain management. 48 states that license acupuncturists, acupuncture physicians, to work within and alongside hospitals and health clinics. So we are recognized in 48 states. Unfortunately, oklahoma right now is not one of them. There's another state, I believe it's Alabama but the reason I say that is because it's legitimate. So if a state recognizes it and insurance companies recognize it, that means it's effective at some level. The trick is going to be finding the right acupuncture physician to help you in whatever you're battling.

Dr. DeWayne Baugus:

The other bit of information that people are usually surprised to hear is the military. The Army, as well as other branches of service, have been using acupuncture and oriental medicine on military bases and on the combat field for well over a decade. That's right. The government has been using acupuncture on the battlefield. If you've ever heard the term battlefield acupuncture, it's not as ferocious as it may sound, but there's treatments and protocols that we have found are extremely effective for pain management. In fact, a few years ago, before I left Florida, the last word I got was every military installation in the United States has an acupuncture physician on it. That means your service members here in the United States have access to acupuncture and the government does use it. So is it legitimate? Does it work? You bet it does.

Dr. DeWayne Baugus:

I'm a walking testimony that it is effective and it works. In fact, I've tailored my whole life, my career, toward helping others, using not just acupuncture and oriental medicine, but both Western medicine as well. So, knowing that alternative medicine, eastern medicine, it's Eastern medicine, and what we use allopathically or here in our hospitals is Western medicine, I love to combine them all. So I hope this gives you a little bit of information about me understanding my background. I'm not just someone who uses people as a dartboard. In fact, there is a method to my madness, and it's not just my method. It's a 4,000-year-old method that helps people feel better. I'm Dr DeWayne Baugus. Thank you for spending your time with me. This has been Balancing Life and Medicine.

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