Bruce Thomas

All that glitters is not gold and all that hurts you is not mold.


But a lot of it is and it’s up to us to figure it out.


Bruce Thomas, MD is a family physician, having graduated from the University of Michigan in 1991. He came to Indiana for residency and upon graduation became an ER doctor, thinking it to be a first step in his career. That first step lasted much longer than he’d originally imagined.


ER was rewarding and enjoyable, but as the years rolled on, he increasingly pondered the questions he’d had since childhood, still not well answered after medical school and residency, about why some people thrived into old age while others seemed to break down decades earlier.


It seems that ER breeds doctors who see an inordinate amount of suffering and ask themselves “Is this all there is? Isn’t there something else that can help prevent or treat these problems?”


He began to study at the American academy of Antiaging Medicine (A4M), becoming certified by them. At one point he did some work at a weight loss clinic and while continuing to do ER another clinic which focused on addiction medicine. Finally he began his current practice in a more holistic setting at Health and Wellness of Carmel, where he also became certified by the American Board of Integrative Medicine (ABOIM).


Both of these boards try to defend what they recommend with medical literature recognizing that there is a lot of junk science out there and that, and many of us get excited about the latest new medical toy before it’s proven because we do want help people. And yes, because we want to be the hero.


But does what we do make sense?


About the time that he was more than ever asking that question, the Health and Wellness group in Carmel sensed there was something going on in the world of mold and Dr. Thomas began the journey to found out.


Having remembered the book Mold Warriors by Ritchie Shoemaker in the office library, he started there. He began talking with patients about the possibility of mold illness, but increasingly felt that if he was going to get into this, he’d better do it right. Eventually he signed up for the Surviving Mold certification program, a more challenging program than he could have imagined, where he discovered that the protocols that Dr. Shoemaker has discovered are based on tenacious inquiry and a rigorous proven methodology that gets results.


For some sick people this is the key and for some others it’s a huge piece of the puzzle.


Clearly the downside of holistic medicine is our quick tendency to adopt things without rigorous analysis, but the upside is our ability to think outside of the box and trade “name and blame” for “think and link.” that is connecting the dots of many different areas to come up with a model that makes sense. Further, the ongoing research into the way CIRS alters gene expression could have an exciting impact on the way the practice medicine turns generally.



Dr. Thomas’s goal is to represent the Surviving Mold community well by thinking and linking, by following and perhaps someday even advancing the Shoemaker protocol that has been the answer for so many people with CIRS.