Dr Wendy Denning is a veteran in the medical world. She is a GP with over 30 years’ experience, has been nominated to Tatler's Top Doctor list 3 years in a row, was co-presenter on the successful Channel Five Show - The Diet Doctors Inside and Out and cowrote a Sunday Times Best Selling Book to accompany the show and has served on the GP Steering Group for the Prince of Wales Foundation for Integrated Health,.
Speaking to Wendy is to be swept up by the enthusiasm she has for her work, which feels more in keeping with the zeal of a recent graduate. There is not a hint of jadedness or late-career cynicism here. What’s her secret?
‘I’m still passionate about being a doctor because I practice integrated medicine,’ says Wendy, emphatically. ‘It’s all about looking at people holistically. I still get up and think ‘why? ’every morning. ‘Why has that patient got what they’ve got? What has happened along their journey that they have this medical issue to deal with? How can we solve it in a way that helps the body to heal itself?’ What gets me up is the enquiry.’
So how do we define integrated, or integrative, medicine?
‘It’s looking at the whole person,’ says Wendy ‘The body interconnects. If there’s something going on in the gut, it’s going to affect the heart. It’s going to affect the brain. You take a full history and look at all the systems in the body and see how they interact. You don’t compartmentalise people – you look at mental, physical, emotional and spiritual.’
‘The integrative part is bringing in treatments and approaches that have come from a variety of different places, ’explains Wendy. ‘For example - your back pain is perhaps best served by an osteopath. Your sleep problem might be best served by routine and the right supplements. Your blood sugar issues that are causing you anxiety and an energy slump in the afternoon are best served by a good diet. For fertility problems I’m likely to send you on to Traditional Chinese Medicine. And I will use different approaches for different people.’
Wendy Denning knew from the very beginning what she wanted to practice. She went into medical school with her sights firmly focused on integrated medicine.
‘I was brought up in a family that used nutrition, homeopathy and osteopathy,’ says Wendy. ‘I grew up with it. But my father was also a businessman from the London School of Business, who knew the ways of the world. He told me, ‘You won’t be taken seriously if you don’t have a very good grounding in traditional Western medicine.’’
She smiles. ‘Which was excellent advice. I parked my interest in integrated medicine for years during the clinical part of medical school training in London and my postgraduate training in General Practice at Northwick Park, Oxford and Vancouver, Canada – which were considered some of the best GP training programmes.’
Despite this, she never lost her passion and her long-term goal to practice integrated medicine.
‘Conventional medicine is still an important tool within my overall holistic toolkit. You have to know when someone is sick and what’s available for them or you can be quite dangerous, in my opinion. One of the key lessons that medical school knocked into us from day one is, know your limitations. I’ll always get a consultant’s opinion, and I will always refer on when needed.’
Wendy still reads every consultant’s letter and regularly goes to trainings and medical conventions (both conventional and integrated medicine), as medicine is constantly evolving. The latest addition to Wendy’s professional skills medical bag is as a study tour leader. Wendy is leading ‘Integrated Medicine in South India’ with Jon Baines Tours (JBT) on 15– 27 February 2025.
Wendy’s face lights up at the very mention of India. ‘I’ve always been fascinated by India,’ she says. ‘My father was bornin Kolkata and lived there with my aunt as children, so it was always a place I felt connected to.’
She spent 5 months in India doing volunteer work as a doctor - assisting at an eye camp serving 10,000 patients, assisting on a mobile hospital and shadowing a doctor who practised Ayruvedic Medicine. She travelled to Bangalore and spent 3 weeks at the wonderful Soukya Clinic, which the tour visits. She has also been on a 2-week medical trip to Rajasthan and visited other areas of India during her many visits.
‘I’m so looking forward to returning to India,’ she says. ‘I love the colours, the people, the magic – India is quite magical – all completely different to our life here. There’s excitement and buzz all the time– even the buses and trains are never boring, with people riding on the top,people selling you things, people always moving – it’s a constant whirl of activity.’ She brandishes her arms enthusiastically. ‘South India is also the birthplace of Ayurveda, the ancient Indian system of medicine.'
She recalls a time when she was working in India, treating perimenopausal women with thyroid issues.
‘I would give them a script for thyroxine and they would thank me politely before heading straight down the corridor to the Ayurvedic doctor.’ She laughs. ‘After several repeats of this, I went down to see the doctor, who very kindly waved away my concerns and told me, ‘Don’t worry, we can retest them all before you leave and I think you’ll find their thyroids will be back under control.’’ She smiles. ‘We did, and sure enough, they were. I was so impressed that I went on to spend time working with him in Mumbai.’
Wendy explains that Ayurveda works best in India, because of the spiritual component. ‘Everyone in India practices some type of spiritual practice. It is integrated into their whole way of being – a generalisation, but true. I am really looking forward to delving more into traditional Ayurvedic medicine while on tour.’
A JBT study tour is a combination of a professional programme and a cultural itinerary. ‘We will meet medical peers within big hospitals and rural clinics, visit an Ayurveda factory and the wonderful Soukya Clinic I know so well,’ says Wendy. ‘But we will also embed ourselves in South Indian life and culture, which is the only way to see the whole human picture – just like in integrated medicine.’ She smiles. ‘I truly think the integrative approach is the future of medicine. While I’ve long been a trailblazer in combining conventional and integrative medicine, I’m very happy that more and more doctors are joining me.’
It's a lucky group that will join the dynamic Dr Wendy Denning, medical trailblazer, on a tour that combines her great passions of India, Ayurveda and integrative medicine.
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