Quick Links to Integrative Medicine Action: January-February 2016

This monthly post offers a quick scan of web action relative to integrative medicine in the prior month. Here are 28 involving medical delivery systems, 12 more in communities and 6 globally. Some of the highlights include a Forbes podcast with Andrew Weil, MD on his views that it’s increasingly the economy and not the consumer that are driving the uptake of integrative medicine. Additionally, read an “Open Letter to Barack Obama” lays out a half-dozen breakthrough areas for integrative pain care that he failed to affirm in his $1.1 billion opioid strategy. Look for the announcement from integrative psychiatrist James Lake, MD on a series of e-books. In India, Isaac Mathai, MD references the 2015 US-India agreement between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on “complementary and traditional medicines.” Enjoy the skim of activity.

 

Medical Delivery Organizations

• UCSF Osher Center has posted a podcast on connective tissue and inflammation.

• The Baxter Regional Medical Center for Integrative Medicine in Missouri is offering chair yoga.

• Kevin Barrows, MD (pictured) is the new director of clinical programs at UCSF Osher Center.
• The Integrative Medicine Interest Group at the University of Arkansas held a successful “Food as Medicine” event.
• This article in Singapore’s Straits Times notes how TCM is being in incorporated into programs at places like UCLA’s Center for East-West Medicine.
  
  

• This “Open Letter to President Obama” references the Joint Commission’s inclusion of integrative practices in a call for integrative medical strategies in regard to opioid issues.
• 70% of the visits to the Lifestyle and Wellness Institute at Cleveland Clinic are medical group visits.
• The American Board of Integrative Medicine (ABoIM) has announced that its “limited time eligibility” program is coming to an end on December 1, 2016.
• A web-update with a list of therapies is posted for the Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine.
• The Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine has announced that its “groundbreaking interprofessional Fellowship in Integrative Health and Medicine has filled its first class.”
• The Graf Center for Integrative Medicine at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center in New Jersey received some press for its mind-body programs.
• In this media release on a “Food as Medicine” program, the naturopathically originated National College of National Medicine describes its scientific endeavors as “integrative medicine research.”
• The UC Davis Integrative Medicine program also has a “Food as Medicine” program.
• MD Anderson offered palliative/rehabilitative/integrative grand rounds.
• CHI Memorial Integrative Medicine Associates gained visibility through a link with Cervical Cancer Awareness Month.

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  Andrew Weil, MD

  Integrative medicine leader Andrew Weil, MD (pictured) was interviewed in a podcast for Forbes be Devin Thorpe on how he is trying to get the healthcare system to focus on health.

• The New Jersey-based Valley Health System’s Integrative Medicine program is featuring a Yoga for Heart Health program and then focused on Integrative Medicine for Crohn’s disease here.

• The Osher Center at Vanderbilt is promoting its Qigong program.

• The Harvard RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences (IMS), established “to integrate immunology and human genome research, aims to create a new research area, integrative medical sciences, and contribute to the future of human health.”

• Mindfulness in eating is explained by Ashwin Mehta, medical director of Integrative Medicine at Memorial Healthcare System.

• An internist Darrin D’Agostino, MD with the North Texas Health Science Center argues for the value of integrative medicine in this Star-Telegraph feature in a piece focusing on “prescribing wellness.”

• The Harvard Osher Center is publicizing $25,000 to $50,000 funds for pilot research projects.

• UCSF integrative neurologist Wolf Mehling, MD is interviewed in this piece in Neurology Now on social isolation.

• Cheyenne Luzader, MS, integrative health coordinator at Delaware’s Beebe Healthcare, has been awarded Fellow status in the American Association of Integrative Medicine (AAIM).

• In this article in a Bangor, Maine paper, a leader in integrative medicine at the University of Arizona talks about the power of breathing.

• The UCLA students in integrative medicine announced their February 27, 2016 annual conference, to feature Karen Lawson, MD and Helen Lavretsky, MD.

• Harvard Osher Center held an integrative medicine grand rounds focusing on behavioral medicine.

 

Integrative Medical Communities

• Achieve Medical Therapy in Grand Forks offers an integrative approach to pain treatment.

• Natural Partners has announced an initial Advisory Board of integrative medical leaders with three Naturopatic Doctors and a Medical Doctor.

• A therapist with Virginia’s Kaplan Center for Integrative Medicine is recommending yoga for thyroid.

• A Buffalo News piece references many integrative medicine programs in a feature on the practices of a local integrative nurse specialist at her Cardea Health Clinic.

• This Huffington Post piece quotes Confucius, Walter Cronkite and Mark Twain in suggesting that the Integrative Medicine movement and everyone who cares about an actual system of health care must be more language conscious about what they call “health care.”

• Deepak Chopra and Eckhart Tolle will make joint appearance at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, Saturday, Feb. 27

• The Akasha Medical Center in Santa Monica is looking for a Board Certified integrative MD or DO, or a naturopathic doctor.

• Canyon Ranch is looking for an integrative physician.

• Integrative psychiatrist James Lake, MD is interviewed here on his e-book series in Psychiatric Times.

• This article in Drug Topics speaks to the move toward “integrative pharmacies.”

• A native Chinese physician who claims to have been practicing integrative medicine had his license taken by the Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy.

• Featured here by Groupon is the clinic, Beverly Hills Integrative Medicine.

 

International

• In Mysore, India, a ​Child Family Health International (CFHI) has a new program in a rural community focused on chronic disease and integrative medicine in collaboration with the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM).

• The Jacka Foundation Chair for Integrative Medicine in Western Sydney, Australia, has a new position being advertised.

• The prejudice against homeopathy is one of the topics in this review of the Glascow Center for Integrated Care, formerly the Scottish Homeopathic Hospital.

• In the Gopalakrishna Endowment Oration on the topic of ‘Holistic and Integrative Medicine, Isaac Mathai, MD, “the homeopathy physician of global repute” spoke of the agreement between U.S. and India on complementary and traditional medicine. Another story is here.

• The Hong Kong Institute of Integrative Medicine is participating in a research study looking at TCM and Western approaches in “a pilot program to manage fatigue and cognitive deficits associated with multiple sclerosis and related disorders.”

• The Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine is promoting its conference in Stuttgart, June 2016.