Meet Dr. Julie Coffey

I went to Sheffield University Medical School in 1989 because I wanted to do something really interesting.

If I’m honest it wasn’t about ‘helping people’ back then, but that is very much the case these days. I’ve been a GP since 1998, but my path has deviated somewhat from the conventional medicine approach, although I am still working in a NHS health centre.

I would say about 80% at least of what I see in my GP work is preventable disease. It’s also potentially reversible. Most illness I see is caused by the way people live and eat. The solution offered by conventional medicine is artificial ‘fixes’ in the form of chemicals – i.e. pharmaceutical drugs.

Little is done to address the real cause of patient’s suffering. It makes me sad that people are put on pill after pill as they get more and more unhealthy, because the cause of their problems are left in place and they are offered little help to change that.

Don’t get me wrong though – I am not totally against pharmaceutical drugs, they do have their place sometimes. But there is a much better way for most people and they are not shown how to do this. Doctors don’t get training in nutrition, even though a human body is built and maintained by the quality of food we eat.

The other thing that annoys me is seeing more and more people destroy their health with dieting. The health profession is doing little to help here either. Again because we have no training, despite the consequences of obesity crippling the NHS and cutting many lives short.