“Like all good medicine, this is all evidence-based and outcomes-oriented,” says James E. McMinn, MD, about his unique practice in Homewood focused on wellness and utilizing a variety of medical modalities. Currently, the McMinn Clinic has a month-long waiting list. “We would not be so successful if we didn’t have great outcomes.”

 

Having been an emergency physician for twenty years, McMinn started his clinic with no patients or charts. In a little over three years, the practice has mushroomed to over two thousand patients, stimulated almost exclusively from word-of-mouth.

 

McMinn doesn’t categorize himself as a primary care physician. “I’m actually what you call a wellness doctor. I respect the fact that my patients have a primary care physician, and I don’t want to interfere with that,” he says.

 

The Clinic’s integrated philosophy, based on the work of Dr. Andrew Weil, relies on “using the best cure for a patient, no matter what discipline it might come from.” Besides the traditional Western approaches, the Clinic offers acupuncture, yoga, breath work, and neurofeedback among other options. “Sometimes we need to expand our toolbox and look for things outside the traditional medical approach to help our patients,” he says.

 

One patient had endured daily migraines for 20 years. She had followed numerous drug protocols with no effect. After taking an extensive history and talking with her at great length, McMinn tested her hormones. He found them out of balance, especially the estrogen. So he put her on a customized program of all natural bio-identical hormone replacements, and her headaches disappeared within the first few weeks.

 

Not accepting insurance allows the McMinn Clinic to spend extended time with each patient. “I can take whatever time is needed to get to the bottom of the problem,” he says.

 

Of all the non-traditional treatments utilized at the Clinic, acupuncture unsettles physicians the most, says McMinn. “It’s a difficult concept to wrap your mind around, but I think it’s the real deal.”

 

In Western medicine, the body is a collection of systems, he explains. “In Eastern medicine, it’s a much more overarching view of the whole body, and the one thing that connects it all is energy.” Acupuncture treats that flow of energy.

 

Acupuncture has proven to be a strongly versatile treatment for McMinn. One patient with trigeminal neuralgia finds relief with once a month sessions. Another with bladder spasms had found no solutions through drugs or at the Mayo Clinic, yet a series of acupuncture led to complete relief. And a series of eight acupuncture treatments resolved the severe difficulty in swallowing one woman had endured following a stroke.

 

“It does not work for everybody,” McMinn says. “But in this practice, I’ve worked hard at expanding my toolbox, because for these patients, most are complicated and the current medical paradigm doesn’t fit.”

 

The most common treatment he uses, though, derives from Western medicine. Bio-identical hormone balance uses hormones exactly like the ones in the body versus the more commonly prescribed synthetics. “This is very evidence-based. I draw blood and find out what needs to be balanced. Then I come up with a customized program,” McMinn says. “This is not a ‘here’s your Premarin^®,’ one-size-fits-all approach.

 

“I don’t bat a thousand, but 99 percent of the time, I’m successful,” he says. He calls himself a “doctor of last resort, because these patients have been elsewhere, and they’re not getting better.” Others seek out the Clinic because they prefer a nondrug approach.

 

For treating depression, McMinn has prescribed yoga, among other modalities. He cites a study where half of a group of patients diagnosed with depression took an antidepressant and the other half practiced yoga. The yoga patients reported as much improvement as the ones taking the drug. “So why don’t physicians use yoga? Because it’s not part of our traditional toolbox,” he says.

Neurofeedback has also proven effective for McMinn in treating depression, along with insomnia, ADD and some autism. Biofeedback uses sound to relay to the patient the level of nervous activity in the body in real-time. Depending on the placement of electrodes, less sound can signify lower blood pressure, relaxed or tensed muscles, heart rate, and other activities of the body. “The active thought process of a patient can have profound physiological effects on the body,” McMinn says.

 

One young patient had an intracerebral bleed that caused constant rigidity in her arm. McMinn prescribed biofeedback to help her consciously release the muscle contractures. “She gradually brought the arm down. Biofeedback worked very well for her.”

 

The concept of integrative medicine is becoming more and more accepted. “The Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Harvard, and Vanderbilt all have integrative medical centers, and McMinn Clinic is trying to bring that same evidence-based integrative medicine to Birmingham,” McMinn says. “Doctors are realizing it’s all about the patient, and we have to expand our options. We’re too focused on drugs and surgery.”