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background resources in PDF |
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some CAM/IM publication links |
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Issues #51-#54 - Sept-Oct 2008 |
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Written by John Weeks
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Issues #51-#54 - Sept-Oct 2008
Issue #54 - October 29, 2008
October 29, 2008
37% of hospitals
offered some form of complementary and alternative medicine in 2007, up
from 26% in 2005. This is the marquis finding from the recently published Summary of
Results of the Complementary and Alternative Medicine Survey of
Hospitals from the American Hospital Association/Health Forum. However, a
low response rate raises initial questions about whether the trend line
is positive. In addition, inclusion of many key modalities in hospitals
that offer CAM is actually down. Here are data and analysis from this always useful pulse on the uptake of non-conventional therapies into US hospitals. Credit
AHA/Health Forum and Sita Ananth, MHA, the lead author. Is CAM inclusion in hospital care actually trending upward? More ...
October 26, 2008
Dan
Redwood, DC on my assertion that chiropractic
is historically Republican leaning ... International Association of
Yoga Therapists leader John Kepner on two guiding lights for his work
from the White House Commission ... Historian and holistic nurse Martha
Libster, PhD, RN, CNS on lessons from the mid-1800s ... ND student
Naini Kohli urges a patient focus in the dialogue over who owns
integrative medicine ... AsOne Coaching Institute founder Linda Bark,
RN shares data from Aussie study showing huge return for employers ...
Michael Levin wonders whether new data on the conscious use of placebos
by internists and rheumatologists suggests openness to the mind-body
connection ... Herbalist and hospital integrative medicine leader Sara
Eisenberg, MS challenges my perspective on the column by Bhaswati
Bhattacharya, MD ... Georgetown law professor and long-time AOM
leader Sherman Cohn, JD argues that patient care has been changed by
the integrative practice movement ... Glenn Hoey, ND comments on
business realities of a naturopathic practice. More ...
October 23, 2008
MGMA
says some MDs turning to alternative medicine, supplement sales, for
business reasons ... Naturopathic specialty board established to
promote aesthetic medicine ... American Acupuncture Council promotes
programs to get acupuncturists and chiropractors to explore anti-aging
medicine ... NCCAM names NIH veteran Jack Killen, MD as Deputy Director
... Institute of Medicine announces agenda for its February 2009
National Summit on Integrative Medicine, not yet much sign of
"integration" ... New American Hospital Association report finds 37% of
hospitals offering some CAM, a 40% increase in the percent since 2005
... Yale-Griffin integrative medicine center in new facility ... Donna
Karan's Urban Zen initiative brands "new category of integrative
practitioner" ... Thumbs up for natural childbirth in Milbank study,
and article by obstetrician Bethany Hays, MD ... USA Today features
Pentagon's exploration of alternatives ... Plus, Annie Appleseed,
patient-centered integrative cancer conference and Integrative medicine
Alliance practitioner-centered weekend ... Three of Calabrese's mentees
earn NIH awards ... More ...
October 22, 2008
With
a little digging, I found some direct statements from the Obama and
McCain campaigns on complementary and alternative medicine, reported
here. On a more limited issue, the American Chiropractic Association
notified its members of a very favorable view of chiropractic from
Obama. Despite historically Republican leanings in the chiropractic
profession, the ACA is quiet on McCain. Meantime, Integrator
sponsor Integrative Practitioner Online asked its members for their
perspectives on which candidate would be the most meaningful to
integrative practices. The findings are here. I close with a brief,
personal perspective, based on alignment with the values that attracted
me to these fields 25 years ago. More ...
October 19, 2008
Integrator
reader and sometimes commentarist Taylor Walsh recently asked staff at
the NIH National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine for
data on the specific amounts of grant awards for specific modalities in
fiscal years 2005-2007. Walsh, the founder and CEO of Washington,
D.C.-based Life Pages, shared the data with the Integrator.
Here are his findings. What do you suppose are the top 3 modalities?
What is the percentage of NCCAM's $362-million for those three years
which were spent on the top three? How does this meet your sense of
priorities? More ...
October 19, 2008
One never knows
what a discussion will engender. Witness this contribution from the
multidisciplinary, clinical/administrative "Decision Circle" of the
True North Health Center in Maine. The 9-person group is responding to
a portion of the Integrator dialogue on who owns "integrative medicine." A writer offered a view of an ideal integrative medical model in which members from various disciplines are each respected and
then opines that it "doesn't exist"? The True North team begs to
differ. Here we have a look at an existing model. The piece is
co-signed by the medical director Bethany Hays, MD, an ND associate
medical director, 2 nutritionists (one a nurse midwife), another MD, a
social worker and 3 administrators. They describe value that has come
from "sitting in circle" for major decisions. More ...
Issue #53 - October 13, 2008
October 8, 2008
[Written for Integrative Practitioner Online]
This Presidential election season medical reform is in the air. I
decided to interview James Gordon, MD, who chaired the most concerted
look at the potential for a federal government role in fostering
integrative care in the United States. The report of the White House
Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy was
published 6 years ago. I asked Gordon to recall his hopes for those
recommendations, then to enumerate where the Commission's work has had
value and where it has come up short. Gordon, author of Manifesto for a New Medicine (and more recently Unstuck),
grades the outcomes of the Commission's work - both the government
response and that of the integrative practice community. Do we need to
have a national Office of some kind, to more fully move this agenda? More ...
October 5, 2008
The
perspective on integration of Stephen Bolles, DC is shaped by
leadership in developing the Woodwinds integrative clinic, service as a
vice president at the multidisciplinary Northwestern Health Sciences
University, a couple years inside United Healthcare and clinical
practice as a chiropractor. So when Bolles wrote and said he had read
the series of heated exchanges on MD-ND bashing and ownership of
"integrative medicine," I was curious to see what he'd say. I wasn't
disappointed: Bolles speaks of the "halo effect" of (MD) medical
education, the depth of disenfranchisement of many MDs, political
medicine, from political/AMA medicine, and how disenfranchisement has
kept the non-MD professions from exploring integration to the same
degree as MDs. Take a read. More ...
October 5, 2008
New 18-practitioner integrative clinic and robust growth at Samaritan Health Services ... Inner
Harmony celebrates 10th year and moves to new space at Scranton's Mercy
Hospital ... HRSA in $310,000 grant to Palmer College of Chiropractic
and Jefferson's integrative medicine prorgam for multidisciplinary
practice-based CAM-IM research network ... National College of Natural
Medicine expands ... AHEC grant funds scholarship for fellowship at
Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine to help serve underserved ...
Oregon College of Oriental Medicine, a research-education-integration
leader for AOM marks 25th year ... Board of NADA, the acu-detox group,
affirms value of 5-point protocol for stress, pain management, not just
detox ... Report on national massage therapy clinical practice
guidelines funded and developed through Massage Therapy Foundation ...
American Chiropractic Association announces policy-related action of
its House of Delegates ... Signature Supplements gets high tech
business development loan from state of Maryland ... Update on
Minnesota-based Collaboration Health Care group started by form
American Chiropractic Network team, plus more. More ...
October 3, 2008
Integrator
adviser and columnist Michael Levin often speaks to us from the
discomforting chasm between the aspirations of integrative medicine and
current realities regarding the natural healthcare products which most
integrative practitioners prescribe in their offices. Here, Levin
focuses on "economic adulteration" of dietary supplements in the recent
story of melamine contamination of infant formulas which caused
sickness and death in China. What are the integrative practitioner's
responsibilities in raising the bar? More ...
October 3, 2008
[From my Integrative Practitioner column] A medical reform movement is afoot in the integrative practice
community. The present goal is as powerful as it is sublime: Tell
Congress that, whatever healthcare reform efforts are undertaken,
wellness must be included. The focal point of the current campaign is House Concurrent Resolution
406 (H.Con.Res.406) introduced by US Representative Jim Langevin
(D-RI). H.Con.Res.406 expresses “the sense of Congress that any effort
to reengineer the health care system in the United States should
incorporate sustainable wellness programs that address the underlying
causal factors associated with chronic disease.” More ...
October 1, 2008
Penny
George, one of a handful of individuals who has had the most
significant influence on the development of integrative medicine in the
United States, was honored recently by Allina Health System. Allina
announced that it will change the name of its leading edge,
inpatient-outpatient integrative center to the Penny George Institute
for Health and Healing. The September 26, 2008 Allina release only
suggests the many strategic roles George has played in advancing this
movement in US and global health care. George's story begins with a
personal experience of breast cancer. Her vision led to the formation
of an influential academic consortium, development of a collaborative
of philanthropists, sponsorship of an IOM summit, lift-off for a key
international research conference, enhancement of multidisciplinary
initiatives and, on the ground in the Allina system, 8000 outpatient
and 14,500 inpatient integrative care visits a year. More ...
Issue #52 - September 26, 2008
September 26, 2008
Happy news, friends and colleague: Please join me in
welcoming a new Integrator
sponsor! Integrative Practitioner Online is a growing, virtual community
of 3700 healthcare professionals, some 1000 of whom will get together,
face-to-face, at their affiliated Integrative Healthcare Symposium in New York
City, February 19-21, 2009. The business model of this new Integrator sponsor is
about building community. I have come to know and like their lead personnel.
This promises to be a great new platform and playground for advancing the Integrator's own
mission. Take a look at who they are and what we're planning. Got any ideas? More ...
September 26, 2008
The
pioneering work of James Prochaska, PhD in "stages of change" and
"readiness for change" is known to many in the integrative practice
community. Changing behaviors is the heart of the best of integrative
care. Employers are drawn to
Prochaska's work because moving an employee toward change can
eventually be monetized. Is this a place for an employer-integrative
practice link? I think so. Prochaska
will be a featured presenter and workshop leader at the October 15-17,
2008 conference of the Institute for Health and Productivity Management
(IHPM), an Integrator sponsor.
I look forward to the opportunity to introduce him to Richard Nahin,
PhD, MD, senior adviser and acting director of extramural research for
NIH NCCAM who will be a keynoter at the meeting. This interview explores
Prochaska's work, potential clinical applications in complementary,
alternative and integrative medicine research and practice, and the way
the reductive research paradigm has hindered application of beneficial
change strategies. More ...
September 22, 2008
If
one cares about one's cultural competency for practice with
practitioners from other disciplines, this set of comments is
excellent, raw and eye-opening material for reflection. In a recent Integrator column,
Bill Benda, MD asserted that "integrative medicine" will always be
MD-centered. Then he responded to prior columns by Tom Ballard, ND and
Peter Glidden, ND, strongly arguing that it was time to stop bashing
medical doctors. These new comments - alternatively conciliatory, insightful, re-focusing, direct, congratulatory and inflammatory - are from
naturopathic student leader Cheri King, 40+ year chiropractic
practitioner and NCMIC president Lou Sportelli, DC, Inner Harmony Group
founder Peter Amato, AANP board member Michelle Clark, ND, and Bastyr
University educator and clinician Christy Lee-Engel, ND, LAc. Their
contributions surround responses to Benda from Ballard and Glidden,
each of whom felt Benda was engaging in his own bashing. I sent these
to Benda prior to printing, who comments again. I conclude with some
words from the poet Robert Graves. More ...
September 22, 2008
[From my Integrative Practitioner Online column} “ … We spend between one fifth and one third of our health care dollars
… between five hundred billion and seven hundred billion dollars (and
that’s a billion, with a b), on care that does nothing to
improve our health. And while overhead and high prices hurt our
pocketbooks, the vast amount of unnecessary care in the system also
makes our health care worse than it ought to be.” The quote is from Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer, by by conventionally-minded journalist Shannon Brownlee. Notably, her horrendous estimate of harmful waste is $400-billion less than the Institute of Medicine's estimate. I have an idea for a warning label. More ...
September 21, 2008
Sherman
Cohn, JD attended the September 12, 2008 meeting of the NIH National
Advisory Council on Complementary and Alternative Medicine and
sent me a report. His notes refer to a discussion of challenges in CAM
research, programs to support careers of distinctly licensed
professionals, a historic look at botanicals in medicine, a concept
paper on CAM for pain, data from a 2007 consumer survey and some future
directions. I figured some of you would be as interested as I was. Cohn,
a professor of law at Georgetown University since 1965, a leader in the
emergence of the acupuncture profession since the early 1980s, and a
sometimes contributor to the Integrator, gave me an okay to share the report with you. Enjoy. More ...
September 19, 2008
CCAOM
backs move in the acupuncture profession toward "First Professional
Doctorate" ... IAYT reports data on the emerging Yoga therapy field ...
ND students set quality standards for nutraceutical partners ...
Hopkins opens integrative clinic with GI focus ... Hawaii Consortium
for Integrative Healthcare begins monthly television program ... New ACOEM guidelines for chronic pain elevate role of acupuncture, yoga ...
Employer group IHPM begins worksite metabolic health initiative ...
American Specialty Health receives awards ... Standard Process'
president Charlie DuBois joins board of chiropractic research group ...
Council for Responsible Nutrition selects naturopathic physician
Douglas MacKay, ND as vice president for regulatory and scientific
affairs ... Changes at the top for American Association for Health
Freedom ... Primary care needs to be aggravated by disappearing interest among med school grads, plus more
Issue #51 - September 15, 2008
September 9, 2008
Data
on total number of AOM students ... Hawaii med school opens
complementary medicine center ... Ralph Snyderman, MD, a top influencer
of medical school-based integrative medicine, tells academic medicine
to "lead, follow or get out of the way" of what he calls "prospective
health care" ... Bradly Jacobs, MD, MPH leaves a Revolution on the
decline ... Physician staffing firm
reports survey on MD views of CAM ... Delaware gets medical
association's support in successful licensing campaign ... AHPA firms
look good in JAMA study ... Integrative Medical Consortium
formed of half-dozen other national professional associations ... Yoga
leader Terri Kennedy selected for American Heart Association role ...
Integrative program for the disabled seeks information on other models
... plus more More ...
September 7, 2008
Bill Benda, MD, weighs in forcefully on the recent series of Integrator articles, guest columns and commentaries on who owns the term "integrative medicine" and some of the attendant name-calling. It's been a little ugly, seeing the disparate perceptions, hurt feelings and
psycho-spiritual-economic rifts between the diverse parties with a
stake in the integrative practice movement. Benda focuses on two points he feels must be made, once and for all, regarding "allopathically-centered
integrative medicine" and the need to end "MD bashing" by naturopathic
doctors and other complementary healthcare practitioners. Benda's
addition to this difficult exchange reminded me of what may be the best
therapeutic course for those wishing to take this healing seriously:
the knowledge, skills and values in the 1994 Pew-Fetzer Task Force work
on practitioner-to-practitioner relationships.
More ...
September 4, 2008
One of the Integrator's Top 10 for integrative practice for 2006 was Working Class Acupuncture. The Portland, Oregon-based business,
controversial in the acupuncture community, promotes greater access to
affordable acupuncture services through a business model in which
acupuncture is delivered in a community room. Patients average $19 per visit. Now just 3-years-old, the
clinic, which anchors a national network, had 448 patient visits in the
final week of August 2008. Visits for the month were at over 1600, up
33% from the prior year, and quite likely the highest number of any
acupuncture clinics in the United States. Co-founder Lisa Rohleder, LAc
shares data on visits, salaries and expansion of this for-profit model which, on reading the work of Nobel
Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, is a classic "social business." More ...
September 1, 2008
Internationally-known Eat Right 4 Your Type author Peter D'Adamo, ND recalls using the term "integrative medicine" in 1979. D'Adamo
was part of a team which was charged with developing the clinical
education strategy at John Bastyr College of Naturopathic Medicine,
founded the year before. D'Adamo, a musician and composer, recalls how
the concept, which became embedded in the naturopathic curriculum as
"integrative therapeutics," was shaped by some musical concepts with
which he was working. The story recalls to mind conversations two
decades later with Tracy Gaudet, MD, when she and her team who founded
the Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona sought
to get their academic minds around what "integrative medicine" was, and
then how to teach it. More ...
August 31, 2008
Guided imagery pioneer Martin Rossman, MD, LAc, read my column, "Toward
an Integrated History for the Integrative Practice Movement." The focus
on the founding of organizations left some key "elements" that needed
to be in the mix. Rossman speaks of the era, the "crack in our
(medical) cosmic egg." He lists some who were key articulators of the
new humanism and holism. There are tastes here of the contribution of
the moment and the greatness of breakthrough thinker which add to that
of the road-builders whose often nearly invisible acts advanced access
for millions of people to kinds of care which manifested the ideas
articulated by these who Rossman honors. More ...
For earlier articles, please click below:
Issues #47-#50 - July-August 2008
Issues #45 & -#46 - May-June 2008
Issues #43-#45 Mar-April 2008
Issues #41 & #42 - Feb 2008
Issues #39 & #40 - Dec-Jan '08
Issues #37 & #38 - Nov 2007
Issues #35 & #36 - Oct 2007
Issues #33 & #34 - Sept 2007
Issues #30-#32 - July-Aug 2007
Issues #28 & #29 - June 2007
Issues #26 and #27 - May 2007
Issue #25 - April 2007
Issues # 23 & #24 - March 2007
Issues #21 and #22 - Feb 2007
Issues #19 and & 20 - Jan 2007
Issues #17 and #18 - Dec 2006
Issues #15 and #16 - Nov 2006
Issues #13 and #14 - Oct 2006
Issues #11 and #12- Sept 2006
Issues #9 and #10 - Aug 2006
Issues #7 and #8 - July 2006
Issues #5 and #6 - June 2006
Issues #3 and #4 - May 2006
Issues #1 and #2 - Apr 2006
All Postings to Aug 15, by Subject Matter
IAYT-Sponsored Series on the Future of Yoga Therapy
Or go to Archive, lower right column, on the home page.
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