MEET DR. LAUREN
Dr. Lauren Deville is board-certified to practice medicine in the states of Arizona, California, and Colorado. She received her NMD from Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine in Tempe, AZ, and she holds a BS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics from the University of Arizona, with minors in Spanish and Creative Writing. She also loves yoga, piano, and good audiobooks. She writes fiction under a pen name in her spare time (click here to visit her author website), and she maintains a movie review blog with her cinephile husband (click here to visit their blog).
Dr. Lauren came to naturopathic medicine in a roundabout way. When she was fifteen, her father died of cancer, after which she planned to devote her life to cancer research. But she quickly discovered that research was not for her. Years later she planned to attend traditional (“allopathic”) medical school, but she was frustrated by her volunteer experience, which seemed to consist only of treating symptoms, rather than searching for and addressing underlying causes. She stumbled upon SCNM almost by accident, but the moment she walked in the doors of her future medical school, she knew that this was what she had been searching for all along. She considers herself incredibly blessed to have found a career that is also a calling.
AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. LAUREN
For closed captioning, please click CC on the video
WHAT IS A NATUROPATHIC DOCTOR?
Your body is amazingly adept at healing itself. If it isn’t getting better on its own, usually that means there’s something in the way. (Naturopathic medicine calls this the “obstacle to cure.”) Dr. Lauren believes that it’s her job to identify the obstacle, help you remove it, and give your body what it needs to heal itself.
WHO SHOULD MAKE AN APPOINTMENT?
Dr. Lauren works best with patients who either:
- Already believe in natural medicine approaches.
- Who have tried traditional treatments without success.
She resonates well with patients who are open with her, and willing to consider the possible mental and emotional connection to physical issues (when relevant). Visits tend to go deep and often become emotional at some point or another. She is a strong Christian and frequently works with either Christian or otherwise spiritually minded patients.
Dr Lauren treats mostly functional illnesses – this means conditions that impair the normal function of a bodily process, but where the body seems to be normal on labs or other examination. Many treatment approaches to such conditions are addressed in more detail on the conditions page.
WHAT HAPPENS AT A VISIT?
Almost everybody gets lab work and at least some diet and lifestyle counseling. Dr Lauren also uses a lot of homeopathy (usually this also involves some counseling) and nutritional supplementation. Upon occasion and when necessary, she will also prescribe botanicals, hydrotherapy, bioidentical hormones, and/or other pharmaceuticals.