PROFILE: Dr. Steve Marsden

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.

Photo courtesy of the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association.

By Ann Brightman

Some 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 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.”

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 chiropractic integrate with Chinese medicine, such that I can make a Chinese diagnosis, but then elect to treat it with a homeopathic remedy or Western herb.

“Chinese medical theory sounds arcane but it was created by empiricists, just like medical science,” he adds. “Two disciplines based so much on observation and interpretation can’t be that far off from each other, and I’m now in a place where I can see they often are both saying the same thing, despite their apparent differences. In short, I’ve come to a place in my career where I practice only one medicine, and can select from various traditions, and even conventional medicine itself, a group of treatments that will work well in both the short and long term.”

In 2009, Dr. Marsden was named Veterinarian of the Year by the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association. “At the time, I was advising Health Canada and the Veterinary Drug Directorate on new regulations on the safe use of alternative medicine in animals.” He has also written several textbooks, including the Manual of Natural Veterinary Medicine – Science and Tradition, co-authored with Dr. Susan Wynn, and lectures to veterinarians around the world about the practice of alternative medicine. He founded the Natural Path Herb Company, which provides high quality organic herbs for veterinary use, and co-founded the Australia-based College of Integrative Veterinary Therapies, a leading distance education college for veterinarians interested in alternative therapies. “Last year, I received the Teacher of the Year award from the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association. It came chiefly from my being asked to present at their annual conferences for the past 12 years.”

It’s a busy life for one man, but Dr. Marsden has no regrets and believes passionately in what he does. “I do it strictly to effect some kind of change,” he says. “I’ve felt for myself how alternative medicine can revolutionize a veterinarian’s life and practice, bringing enormous gratification as he or she sees their efficacy skyrocket while becoming liberated from the practice of sending every second patient home on prednisone.

“We are approaching a time when veterinarians can offer ‘the best of all possible worlds’, without straying from their comfort zones,” Dr. Marsden concludes. “With that in mind, I think the next couple of decades will see a revolution in veterinary practice, at least in North America. There will never have been a better time to be a doctor.”