Project Creative Vision

New Vision of Holistic Health

As regular readers of this blog know, my interest in holistic holistic health and wellness has grown over the past year.  As a student of energy medicine, aromatherapy, Reiki, and general principles of holistic health, I've come to realize that, if we want to change our lives for the better, we can't be looking at just one isolated slice of our life for the answers.  We are whole, complex human beings, and to create positive change in our lives, we need to treat ourselves as such and address the challenges we face on many different levels.

This growing interest led me last week to the Summit on Integrative Medicine and the Health of the Public, put together by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.  I left the Summit inspired by the discussion and the possibilities for all of us together to build a society that fosters holistic health and honors each and every one of its members as a whole and complete human being.

To continue the discussion that started there, and extend it to those who were unable to join us, I have invited several friends who are leading the effort here in the Washington, DC area to offer their thoughts and perspectives on the Summit here on my blog.  

Below are the guest posts:

Lucrezia Mangione argues that we are part of a sea change in health care and there is room for all at the table in Creating the Culture of Wellness. 

Daphne White reports on groundbreaking Senate testimonies by Mehmet Oz, Dean Ornish, Andrew Weil, and Mark Hyman, and on Sen. Harkin's moving address to the IOM Summit.  Daphne calls upon all CAM practitioners to "put in sweat equity" to make sure that integrative health care is really part of the health care reform.

And Izabella Tabarovsky (yes, that's me) chimed in with some takeaways concerning what we, as CAM practitioners, can do to make the new, emerging paradigm a reality.

I have also just added a post on Dr. Mehmet Oz's remarks at the event and may be adding more as I go through my notes. 

In the meantime, the full webcast of the conference is now available online, so you can watch the entire event or the parts that interest you the most from the comfort of your own home.

What are your thoughts on the subject? Please share your comments under any of the posts that have caught your attention.  Let's all join in the revolution that's taking place in the way we as a society view and create health and wellness! 

IOM Summit: Opportunities Are Huge

But CAM Practitioners Must Seize the Initiative

 By Izabella Tabarovsky

Note: This post is part of the discussion on the Summit on Integrative Medicine

The 3-day Institute of Medicine Summit on Integrative Health was truly mind-broadening for me.  I came away excited about the possibilities and bursting with ideas.

The key was that we are living at a time of huge opportunities.  But no one is going to hand anything to us on a silver platter.  We must fight for what we believe in - and we must get creative about it. 

We can continue complaining how mainstream establishment doesn't recognize or accept us, that insurance companies don't reimburse us, and how the public doesn't understand what we do.  Or we can get beyond the current paradigm and think creatively about our competitive advantages vis-a-vis mainstream medicine and go there. 

Two key ideas were voiced at the Summit in this regard:  Community-based care networks and work-site CAM interventions.  Both require initiative on our part. And to become viable, both require that we overcome our tendency to get silo'ed and act alone.  Right now we will benefit from acting together, from helping each other out, from, together, creating the new paradigm in which the benefits of CAM modalities will be apparent to everyone. 

With that, here, briefly, are some of my take-aways from the Summit:

• The new paradigm is being birthed.  It seemed that everyone, from MDs to insurance reps, agreed that the old paradigm of health care is broken. We are present at the birth of the new paradigm.  No one knows yet what it will be.  The moment to contribute to the shaping of this new paradigm is now.  Each of us participating in the CAM field must now step up to the plate and do our part in making sure that integrative health care truly becomes a reality. 

• From evidence-based practice to practice-based evidence.  Pedigreed scientists such as Ken Brigham and Lawrence Green suggested that "to reject a treatment because we don't understand the mechanism is a mistake." The idea that randomized control trials don't work with CAM modalities and that practice-based evidence is "the only way to integrate practices that have hundreds of years behind them" was voiced repeatedly.  This means that if your practice shows results, that should be considered good enough evidence.  Music to the ears of a CAM practitioner.

• Shortage of primary care physicians creates opportunities for CAM practitioners.  The PCP shortage is already affecting the health care industry.  By 2025 we could be short as many as 200,000 PCPs, and, according to Richard "Buzz" Cooper, the health care reform could increase the shortfall by another 400,000.  Doctors' functions are becoming increasingly narrow and high-tech.  The offloading of tasks by physicians will accelerate, leaving physicians with increasingly narrower responsibilities, more high-tech and less relevant to the real issues affecting the health of their patients.  Other disciplines will, by necessity, be called upon to fill the gap, and this is where CAM practitioners will have their entry.

• There is room for everyone at the table to provide an amalgam of services.  This means that there will be room for everyone, from chiropractors to acupuncturists to health coaches to energy healers in creating an amalgam of care.  Because of the above, we are moving into a place where physicians will share the platform of care with a broad range of non-physician clinicians. 

• We must educate MDs and the public about our modalities. For the above point to be true, PCPs have to become educated about what we as CAM practitioners do.  83 percent of PCP practices in this country are groups of 1 or 2.  They account for nearly 50 percent of primary care.  This means that there are great opportunities to develop community care groups that could include nutritionists, dietitians, social workers, all connected to small PCP practices. The problem is that many times MDs, along with general public, have no idea what it is that we do.  So it is up to each and every one of us to take the initiative and reach out to the PCPs and educate them.  Go introduce yourself to PCPs in your neighborhood, tell them about what you do, show your credentials, build a relationship.  Begin where you are. 

• Empathy is CAM practitioners' competitive advantage.  I was floored by a slide presented by one of the speakers that illustrated the dramatic decline of empathy in medical students as they progress through medical school. This shift particularly affects men, whose levels of empathy drop nearly to zero.  (I don't have that particular slide, but here's a link to another onethat demonstrates the same point.)  What this suggests to me that we as CAM practitioners are, first and foremost, in the business of empathy.  In fact, empathy is our competitive advantage vis-a-vis the MDs - all the more so because studies show that empathy is the top quality that patients long to see in their caregivers.  Emphasize this with your prospects, let this be your selling point.

The one thing I found myself wishing for was that the Summit had lived up to the word "integrative" in its name and included the discussion of mind and spirit, not just the body. Dealing with questions of meaning and purpose is integral to whole person health.  But hey, you can't get everything right right away.  Perhaps next time.   

Sen. Harkin: Time to End Discrimination against Alternative Health Care Practices

Practitioners Must Lobby Congress to Make it Happen

By Daphne White, CHTP

Note: This is a guest post that is part of the discussion on the Summit on Integrative Medicine

It was not your usual Senate hearing.  Testifying on behalf of integrative medicine before Senators Harkin, Mikulski and Enzi at the Senate HELP Committee were four leading physicians:  Mehmet Oz, Dean Ornish, Andrew Weil and Mark Hyman.  Testifying on behalf of the status quo was … no one!  That’s an unusual set-up on Capitol Hill, where panels are usually set up to represent “both points of view.”  Lobbyists for the medical establishment were present to watch the proceedings and plot their next steps, but they didn’t have a seat at the table.  Not this time, anyway.

By any measure, it was a watershed week:   the Feb. 26 HELP Committee hearing was the second in four days to focus on integrative medicine.  And the very next day, Sen. Harkin traveled across town to the Institute of Medicine, to address the 500-strong Summit on Integrative Medicine.

“Clearly, the time has come to ‘think anew’ and to ‘disenthrall ourselves’ from the dogmas and biases that have made our current health care system – based overwhelmingly on conventional medicine – in so many ways wasteful and dysfunctional,” Harkin told both groups, borrowing some quotes from President Lincoln’s 1862 address to Congress.

“It is time to end the discrimination against alternative health care practices.  It’s time for America’s health care system to emphasize coordination and continuity of care, patient-centeredness, and prevention.  And it’s time to adopt an integrative approach that takes advantage of the very best scientifically based medicines and therapies, whether conventional or alternative.”

Speaking to the IOM Summit on Monday, Harkin said, “I have just four words for you:  Our time has come!”  He added that IOM visitors to Washington might think “it looks like the same old Washington, but it’s not.” 

Creating a Culture of Wellness

Note: This is a guest post that is part of the discussion on the Summit on Integrative Medicine

By Lucrezia Mangione, CHTP/I, CMT 

Have you ever thought about . . .

• What a healthy health care system looks like?

• What a patient or person-centered approach to health and healing is?
• A place for certified, credentialed and/or licensed health care practitioners co-existing within a system that engenders cross-disciplinary connection, discussion and collaboration? 
• What happens when all credentialed and/or licensed health practitioners collaborate together, in support of the suffering person/patient with an individualized well-care program? 
• What an honest, authentic discussion of the inherent problems with our health care industry and its' sick care model sounds like? 
• The behavioral challenges to better health?
• The class/social  issues that prevent access to health care?

Six hundred health professionals joined together for a lively discussion on these topics and more on Feb. 25-27, 2009.  It was a thought provoking and collaborative experience where I was sincerely surprised to be among peers.  We, the people who genuinely wish to alleviate suffering, engaged in dialog on Integrative Medicine and the Health of the Public at the Institute of Medicine and Bravewell Collaborative's Summit in Washington D.C.

It was powerful. I was positively impacted.  There were more questions than answers and there is so much to share.  In the spirit of brevity, however, I'll speak to a few points that stood out for me.

This Is What I Learned:

"Person-Centered Care" Is the New Model for Health

Because of the efforts of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) practitioners and their holistic work over the years, the new model emerging for health care is a shift to "patient centered cared" or "person-centered care".    The individual is returned to the center of the health care wheel and s/he is the hub around which all else happens.  This shift will take time but there are models that are working already like the eight integrative centers of Bravewell Clinical Network. 

In the meantime, business is the force driving the shift.  Employee wellness centersare arising within large companies.  Why?  Because the return on investing in an employee's wellness is significant:  employees perform better. There are studies that prove meditation, fitness and health coaching are helping in "presenteeism: be here now" as Dr. Kenneth Pelletier puts it.  Businesses are bringing about the person/patient centered care and self-care empowerment.  See this article on Medtronic:

This Is What I Realized:

Integrative Practitioners Are on the Same Page

Breaking Through the Fear

I've been thinking a lot in recent months about the fears that hold us back in life and how I can help those I'm honored to work with to break through those fears.  Fear is a natural part of who we are, and our great task in life is to face that fear down in order to grow stronger - mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.  This task, which isn't easy even in the best of times, has become even tougher since the beginning of the current economic crisis. 

So I wanted to share this email that a former client sent me a few weeks ago.  (I'm publishing it, of course, with his express permission.) It shows that sometimes all that's needed to break through the fear is the realization that, no matter the external circumstances, we all get just this one life to live.  In the end, that life will be judged not by how tightly we held on to what we had but by how bravely we faced our fears down and followed our guts into the lives we were meant to live. Thanks for the inspiration, my friend!

Hi Izabella!  I have some great news! Last week I was finally offered a great sales job with a [well-known company]. Work from home, great salary, and wonderful benefits.

So you may be shocked to hear that in the middle of the worst recession in 75 years, I turned down the job the day I was supposed to start, and have decided to move to [another state], enroll in a certificate program in theology at the Seminary there, take a few entrepreneurship classes, and in the next 6-months start my own business and probably one for my wife as well! 

A pastor of mine said a profound thing last year, “Nobody gets tomorrow.” Meaning - do it today because you might not be here tomorrow.  I decided that I cannot go another day pretending during interviews and not being honest with myself. I have never been more excited, and more filled with feelings of moving in the direction of my gifts, abilities and passions.

Restoring Sanity Amidst Fear-Mongering

In the midst of this whole financial crisis, I've found myself longing for a leader with an inspirational message. A leader who would come out and, in FDR's manner, tell us that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. A leader who'll remind us all that, rather than falling prey to panic, we should be focusing on the great things awaiting us. A leader who, rather than scaring us, will urge us to rise above the pettiness of it all and restore our faith in our great destiny.

Who will tell me, in the manner of Eleanor Roosevelt: "I gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which I must stop and look fear in the face...I say to myself, I’ve lived through this and can take the next thing that comes along"? 

But since there's no such leader in sight, it looks like I'll have to come up with an inspirational message all by myself... So here are some words of wisdom of my own for these trying times:

1. Refuse to panic. Fear-mongering may be the daily fare of the talking heads, but you – you can choose against joining in the doom and gloom. Turn off the TV and choose to be in the company of people with a more positive view of life. If there are no such people in your life, keep your own counsel. It's better to be alone than surround yourself with those who infect you with panic and fear.

2. Take a big-picture perspective. Sure, the world as you know it as changing. Who would have thought, even a couple of months ago, that Lehman Brothers and JP Morgan would disappear from our financial landscape? For that matter, though, who ever thought that Enron would? And how about that old monster, the Soviet Union?

The Buddha, as always, was right: life is about change, and if you think otherwise, you're clinging to an illusion. Institutions come and go, and so do economic, financial, and political crises. Life, on the other hand, goes on.

Here's my bold, big-picture prediction: No matter the outcome of the Senate vote tonight, the Fall will still be ravishingly beautiful in the Shenandoah valley, winter will be cold in Siberia, and the birds will continue chirping outside my window.  N no matter who becomes president on November 4, the sun will rise every day and the rivers will continue to flow.

Life went on after other crises, and it will again. Are you living it in such a way as to say, at the end of it, that you lived a life of few or no regrets?  That's the real question we all need to answer.

3. Nurture your mind with great thoughts. In the words of Benjamin Disraeli, "to believe in the heroic makes heroes." So rather than filling your mind with fear-mongering, fill it with something that inspires you. Who are your heroes? Who are the people you want to emulate? There is nothing like a time of transition, in which we find ourselves now, to reconsider what's important for you and readjust your life's course to make sure that you are moving exactly in the direction you want to be.

4. Security comes from within. If you were working for Lehman Brothers, you, too, probably thought that you had a secure job. You learned first-hand that no external source can provide you with that security. Now may be as good a time as any to ask yourself what security really means to you. If the company you work for now disappeared from under you, where would you draw your sense of security from? Hint:  look on the inside, where it's always been and where it always will be.  No external source – job, marriage, relationship, bank account – can give it to you. Reconnect with your inner sense of security, and you will never again depend on external circumstances to live an abundant and prosperous life.

5. Get grateful for what you have. "Complaints erase good fortune. Appreciation builds joy for all eternity." How about that one from Taro Gold? No comment necessary.

6. Tighten your circle. We are constantly urged to broaden our network, but here's a bit of a contrary advice. Rather going out in search of new contacts, how about consolidating the friendships and family relationships you already have? These are the people who love you and to whom you mean a lot. Now may be as good a time as any to begin overlooking the little irritations they've caused you and forgiving the small mistakes they've made. Strengthen the relationships you have. Create the sense of stability from within. You really do already have everything you need to feel happy and secure.