Travis Gordon never really thought about living abroad when he was growing up and going to school in Lansing, Mich. He didn’t think much about it while earning a B.S. in exercise and Health Science and a B.A. in Spanish from Alma College either. But once he volunteered with the Peace Corps in 2007-2009 in public health with a focus on HIV/AIDS and was awarded the International AIDS Day Award for outstanding initiatives in the field by the Peace Corps, he began to think about it more.

 

Then, he entered medical school at the Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine, or MSUCOM, graduating with his Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree in 2013 and honored with the Fred Mitchell Sr. OMM Award and Andy Award from the Michigan Osteopathic Association for international osteopathic research. Then, he started thinking about it even more. While a medical student at MSU, he said he was still learning his way, knowing he wanted to serve others as a physician, but not fully clear what that would look like.

After his Peace Corps service and years of working with patients, today, Gordon is an assistant professor of Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine, or OMM, at MSUCOM and director of Medical Education for International Studies in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, where he oversees all international projects and collaborations between MSU IGH and Merida, Mexico. And he makes his home in Mexico and focuses on improving the lives of others through osteopathic medicine and research.

His path has taken some unique turns, but he’s grateful for all of them.

He returned to the MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine after graduating from residency in 2017, focused on advancing international collaboration in health care through outreach, collaborative research and educational exchange.

“While in Mexico, I finally began to take psychotherapy, something I had always wanted to do. I learned things about myself that I somehow had never understood. I saw the value in this for patient care and decided to take a Masters in Humanistic Psychotherapy and it changed my life forever,” he said. “It changed how I thought about body, mind and spirit — what they are and where the rubber meets the road. I was learning psychology in Spanish, but it all sounded like osteopathic medicine to me.”

The additional degree, along with his D.O. and OMM work, has helped him to understand the connections he sees in osteopathic medicine and its view of the whole person and how people are tied to the world. Dr. Gordon explained a person is a sound unit — body, mind and spirit — and he believes osteopathic medicine is superior because of its philosophy and what he refers to as its indigenous roots from its beginning with the founder of osteopathic medicine, A.T. Still, and his work and interactions with native American tribes.

"Osteopathic medicine includes a philosophy that is very patient centered, he said, adding “A.T. Still saw healthcare and medicine differently than his cohorts of the 1800s because often times, even with the best intentions and ‘heroic remedies,’ patients died. A.T. Still believed the body’s immune system could be used to heal itself and maybe we should promote what’s good rather than killing what’s wrong. To this end he said, “To find health should be the object of the doctor. Anyone can find disease.”

A pharmacological approach to healthcare is sometimes very appropriate and necessary, and usually better when complemented with other care, he added.

For Gordon, this pursuit to treat and serve the whole person has led him to research vanilla in collaboration with David MacFarlane, professor of Forest Measurements and Modeling in the MSU Department of Forestry, who received a $50,000 grant for this work. Gordon’s focus is on the health benefits of the plant that once was cultivated by the Mayans.

“I’m a human doctor and he’s a tree doctor. It’s really cool because health has a lot to do with nature,” Gordon said, adding vanilla offers many medicinal uses, including anxiolytic properties, wound healing, menstrual issues, childbirth and even newborn apnea. “It’s even worth more than silver by weight!”

Gordon first got involved with vanilla research on his own and today continues to grow the plant on his farm. “We are trying to reinvigorate vanilla in Yucatan,” he said. “We want to reimplement it in Mayan villages around the state and are starting with a reserve with private property owners that are trying their hand at it under our team’s training.”

The shade crop needs a forest to reach its full potential and bringing it back to the area also returns ancestral knowledge and an economic bed for the region’s women and children, Gordon added. Currently, the team is studying insects to see what is needed for vanilla to fruit. In the meantime, they are hand pollinating, which is how the rest of the world also pollinates vanilla, he explained.

In addition, Gordon collaborates with hospitals, universities, research centers and government entities as he works to connect MSU people with others in Yucatan to create projects from which research, student exchange and other initiatives can begin.

This story was originally published on the College of Osteopathic Medicine website.