Dr. Bianca Despotides, ND

God, absolutely. It's not me, honestly. There are so many bad situations that I look back on, I'm like a Hallmark movie. I should have died so many times, and literally I would hear "I am saving you for a higher purpose". I was never supposed to be able to have kids, and when I got pregnant with my first daughter, it was a game changer. It was like I had seen miracles, I had lived miracles, but that higher purpose was being revealed. .I'm a first-generation American, and I understand that we wouldn't have been anything if we didn't come to America, Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. I was really raised to believe that the American dream was real, and if I worked hard enough, that could happen for me. My family and community are absolutely my drive and purpose. I'm very firmly rooted in my faith.

C's get degrees. On the first day of medical school, one of the teachers said, C's get degrees, and at that time, I was horrified because I was always a 4.0 straight-A student my entire life. By the time I graduated, I understood it. Try for the A's, but C's get degrees, because they are really teaching to the board exam in medical schools. There's so much more to practicing the Art and Science of Medicine than passing board exams. Thank God you graduate, thank God you pass your boards, and then you start learning everything all over again. In my experience, I had the basic knowledge, but I was not prepared for the world of practice like I had expected to be based on the dollar amount of my tuition.

You know it's gonna be hard, but you have no idea. You have no idea the extents that it will test you to. You have no idea, honestly, how it can destroy personal relationships. All the people that got so excited when you got accepted are not the same people that were there at your graduation party. It really tests who loves you unconditionally, and who is kind of in it for the glamour, because you really don't have the time, your whole life becomes your training. People have to understand, not everybody wants to see you win. Understand that it's going to reveal things that are going to be painful, but also about yourself. I was always a 4.0 straight-A student my entire life, and then I went back to med school with kids. Be honest with yourself about your capacity. You're gonna be losing some sleep, self-care changes, everything changes. I have to know that the charge I'm here to lead in my community, I have to lead in my home first. Stay very firmly rooted in your faith and integrity. I left an amazing paycheck because the owner told me I had to stop giving all the glory to God and I had to stop telling people about my story. I made it clear who I was, and even though I'm leaving an amazing paycheck, I'm leaving because this is not my integrity.

One of the biggest challenges in naturopathic medicine is the limited availability of residency opportunities, along with training that often prioritizes board exams over real-world clinical readiness and a broader healthcare culture that can rely on blame and shame. At the same time, there is a growing opportunity to expand patient education around root-cause healing and to provide more compassionate, love-centered care that empowers individuals in their health journeys.

I'm very faith-based. I'm only around because I'm saved for a higher purpose. When I got accepted to medical school, I made a vow to God and said, how am I not going to become like these evil doctors? And I heard deeply to love everyone as if they were my own family. I'm in the business of love and hope. My biggest overall goal is to spread education and teaching from a point of loving all my patients and helping them love themselves. There's so much blame, shame, and guilt in healthcare, and that's not how I approach it. I'm more blessed to be a mother than to be a physician. I wasn't even supposed to have children, so my kids are just straight-up blessings to me.