I was born midcentury in Rockford, Illinois to Ford Alderman of Muskegon, Michigan, and Elsie Martha Alderman of Trollhätten, Sweden. My childhood was rich in explorations of upper Mississipia through walking, swimming, canoeing, rock climbing, and caving; as well as in social and psychological obstacles that continue to motivate my self-care and cure.
After a year at Northwestern University, I transferred to the University of Chicago, where I earned an AB degree in Biology and an MD degree from the Pritzker School of Medicine. After a year of internship in categorical medicine at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, I entered the Preventive Medicine Residency program at the University of Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine in Seattle, and obtained my MPH. Fortunately for me, I had the chance to access scholarships based on achievement and financial need.
On finishing my training, I joined the faculty of the Department of Preventive Medicine and Biometrics of the University of Colorado Medical School, where I did research in clinical and reproductive epidemiology and obtained board certification in Preventive Medicine and Public Health. Five years later, I returned to the University of Washington to join the faculty of the Department of Epidemiology in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine. Throughout this time, I had the chance to collaborate with and learn from many gifted and able colleagues, including those who did similar work in other countries.
In the late 1980s, I began to experience insidious symptoms that led to a diagnosis of “Chronic Fatigue” Syndrome in 1996. During the subsequent months, while bedridden with pain and disequilibrium, I occupied the time with writing. Through this, I inadvertently began to “put it all together”. Recognizing that mainstream medicine had little to offer, I turned to Dr. Cao of Bastyr University, and to a string of what some would call “alternative” providers. After ten years, I found an open-minded doctor of family medicine who took an empirical approach to treating emerging illnesses. After another five years, I found the doctor I had long sought in myself and others. Dr. Vega is a maverick with horse sense, street smarts, and a well-developed and well-used medical ethos. This inspired him to develop an innovative group practice that broke conventional boundaries by offering multidisciplinary, creative, sensible, objective, intuitive, and effective care.
Dr. Vega’s elimination diet allowed me to discover that conventional food had been poisoning my flesh daily, for at least fifteen years. I found that corn oil and derivatives were the most damaging, and that inhaled poisons and penetrative non-ionizing radiation were likewise toxic. I realized that it was not only birds, frogs, bees, newts, and other struggling species that were succumbing to the modern human way of living; it was all evolved life, including the most oblivious and clannish of species: humans.
Beth Alderman MD MPH 