Integrative medicine seems to be a big buzzword lately. It is truly wonderful that there seems to be genuine interest on every level for combining complementary or alternative therapies with standard Western medicine. Hospitals, Western medical teaching institutions, cancer centers, and many other health care facilities realize the need for even a basic understanding and merging of these therapies with traditional health care.
There is a wonderful group of educators tackling this problem. The National Education Dialogue to Advance Integrated Health Care is comprised of educators from the most prestigious educational institutions and of the highest standards of excellence in their own fields. They are searching for the soul of health care education and have established a set of goals, including:
I was honored recently with an invitation to join the group's values project. I have been amazed, even in the short time I have been involved, at the depth and degree of professional investigation the group has conducted into this valuable area. You can keep up with this process and the subject of integrative medicine by going to the Web site www.integratorblog.com.
This coming decade will bring many changes for health care. I am holding tight to my personal vision of a health care system that is available to all and that offers many diverse and complementary avenues of healing, encompassing body, mind and spirit.
Please include me in your discussions about our health care for the future. I welcome all comments and discussion.
Structured water (H3O2) can be considered a fourth state of water between liquid and solid. It has the hexagonal structure of ice; however, missing a critical bond, it behaves more like a gel than a solid, but retains some of its crystalline structure.
In the past five years of my clinical practice, I have seen an astonishing upsurge in the chronic use of proton-pump inhibitor (PPI) medications for the gastrointestinal issue diagnosed by allopathic medicine as GERD. It is not uncommon to encounter patients taking these prescriptions for five-plus years.
Working with chronically ill patients entails acknowledging the reality that not all patients will survive their diagnosis. Chinese medicine and acupuncture play a crucial role in palliative and end-of-life care, addressing medication and disease side effects, alleviating pain associated with death, reducing anxiety and stress, and helping patients find peace during the dying process.
