What is the secret to healthy living? The right medical advice, daily practice, or balance between work and play? Half Moon Bay attracts people seeking wellness. One inspiring resident is Dr. Deborah Penrose. She combines a holistic approach to healthcare with a commitment to creativity.

For 20 years, she has practiced osteopathic medicine in Half Moon Bay while pursuing a love of photography. This fall, she plans to open her home as an art gallery for friends to show their work. Her office radiates warmth through flowers, family photos, and thank you cards. To learn about Dr. Penrose is to learn strategies for healthy living on the coast.

Mind and Body Work Together
“Osteopathic doctors treat patients, not diseases,” Penrose said. “Osteopathy is based on the principle that we can’t subdivide mind and body; they work together.”

For example, Penrose treated a patient experiencing severe pain following foot surgery. The patient had received conventional medical advice: elevate, medicate, and return in three weeks. The patient’s foot swelled painfully, her arms ached from crutches, Vicodin did not help, and she resorted to crawling. From an osteopathic medicine perspective, there was clearly a mind-body divide.
Penrose instructed her patient to massage the foot; this treatment increased circulation, heightening the immune response. When the patient touched her foot she no longer perceived it with pain.

“So much of patients’ pain is about how they perceive the pain, and so much of that is based in fear,” said Penrose. She advised her patient to remember that the foot is attached to the rest of the body, as part of the whole person, and not simply a receptacle for pain.

Serious Illness and Advice for Wellness
However, osteopathic medicine does not claim that illness is only in the mind. Penrose rejects a blanket approach to the mind-body connection. “When there is a diagnosis like cancer, there is a misplaced tendency for patients to blame themselves,” she said. “Serious illness does not happen because people are not in touch with their inner selves, or doing enough meditation and yoga.”

Instead, osteopathic medicine concerns loving the whole body. “It has been shown that if a patient is in touch with alternative modalities, the patient will get better faster, feel better sooner, and live longer.”

Regarding prevention, Penrose advises women, “The best way we detect cancer is by inadvertent touch. Start playing with your breasts to feel for lumps.”

Her message focuses on the importance of embracing the whole person as the recipe for wellness. “We harness and hide our breasts and are always ashamed of them because they are the wrong size or shape,” she said.

Life in Balance

Her own life has been a balance of art and science, creativity and medicine.

After art school and an early career as a fashion illustrator in Manhattan, Penrose volunteered with AmeriCorps VISTA in Washington, D.C. At VISTA she realized, “If I were to do anything with my life, it would have to be real service. I looked to medicine as a career, and osteopathy came naturally.”

She juggled marriage – raising two children, Sam and Julie – and pre-med classes on the way to obtaining her doctorate from the College of Osteopathic Medicine in Philadelphia.

Secrets to Good Health
Today, she resists giving stock formulas for wellness. “Advice for health has to be individualized, just like therapy has to be individualized. Everybody is different.”

An osteopathic doctor and an artist, Penrose treats her patients holistically and creatively, teaching them to love the whole person. She also cares about living harmoniously with the earth. “Environmental change is about shifting our attitude,” she said. “Avoid plastic. Buy less. Share more.”

These are words to live by, for a healthier life on the coast.