profile Dr. Steve Marsden
start, he was dissatisfied with this approach. “There were so many conditions I couldn’t seem to treat effectively, and many more that resisted diagnosis. For other conditions, the treatment seemed worse than the cure.”
Photo courtesy of the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association.
DVM, ND, MSOM Lac Dipl.CH CVA
Dr. Steve Marsden (right) receives the 2009 Small Animal Practitioner Award from the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association. The award was presented by Dr. Lynn Webster of Petsecure Pet Health Insurance, who sponsored the award.
By Ann Brightman ome people know from a very young age what they want to be when they grow up. Veterinarian Dr. Steve Marsden is one of them. “I was seven years old and accompanying my mother as she took our cat to the veterinarian,” he recalls. “I remember being struck by the way our veterinarian simply ran his hands over her body and was able to tell us instantly what was wrong with her. I’d been raised to respect and admire animals, so the concept of being able to tell so much about them just by touching them was stunning to me. Right then and there, I resolved that I had to be just like that vet.” As with most other veterinarians, Dr. Marsden was trained in conventional medicine. “Part of my training was to inherit an unhealthy disrespect and disregard for all things holistic as unproven and unscientific.” But right from the
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integrative veterinary care
At one point, Dr. Marsden considered leaving the veterinary field, but an incident with one of his patients turned his life around. “A client came in to have her dog vaccinated. She said, ‘I believe in preventive medicine for my kids, too. I give them arsenic every morning.’ I looked at her with horror and alarm. ‘Well, it’s homeopathic,’ she replied defensively.” Intrigued but still sceptical, Dr. Marsden started researching homeopathy and was amazed to learn that vets in Europe regularly use it with their patients. “They use it for just about every condition I was frustrated by. What followed was two years of experimentation, aided tremendously by Christopher Day of the UK. It took awhile, but eventually I was successfully treating even devastating problems with homeopathy. After one particularly stunning success, when the owner assured me her dog was now perfectly normal, I became aware of a vast hole in my training.” Dr. Marsden decided to become a naturopathic physician and has never looked back. He practices in Edmonton, Alberta. Along with homeopathy, his treatment method of choice is Chinese medicine. “It has several different modalities that can all be understood according to the same medical theory, and thus applied simultaneously and synergistically to a patient,” he explains. “With any patient, you can do something physical immediately – such as acupuncture, acupressure or massage – even as you’re waiting for herbs and a diet change to kick in. You end up with a protocol that works both immediately and over the long term, while fighting a problem on multiple levels. That being said, I now understand how homeopathy, Western herbal medicine, and
