| | Integrator Top 10 People in Integrative Medicine/Integrated Health Care from 2010 | |
Summary: Integrator columnist Michael Levin recently had occasion to read a series of reports, prepared by the internationally-known health care consulting firm, The Lewin Group. The subject: possible cost impact of pro-actively using a few dietary supplement interventions for a handful of conditions. The outcomes were compelling. Levin argues that this kind of work, funded by the dietary supplement industry, exemplifies forward thinking collaborative effort needed to advance the integrative and natural health fields. The story of this strategic funding will be familiar to chiropractic ...
Top 10 Events from 2006 - Top 10 Events from 2007 - Top 10 Events from 2008 --
Top 10 Events from 2009 - Top 10 People 2009 -- Top 10 Events from 2010
Send your ideas for individuals deserving of mention
to
johnweeks@theintegratorblog.com for inclusion in a follow-up column.
This list is a companion piece to the Integrator Top 10 Events from 2010. As with that list, I asked the Integrator editorial advisers for their suggestions. Their contributions are noted here where appropriate.
1. Adi Haramati, PhD: Brokering Inter-Disciplinary Respect Via Inter-Professional Education
A decade ago Aviad "Adi" Haramati, PhD, emerged on the integrative practice and "CAM" scene as both an integrative medicine educator at Georgetown University and as a cross-disciplinary diplomat. In 2010, Haramati's commitment to the value of multiple disciplines was expressed again in the unique relationship between his Georgetown Masters in CAM program and Bastyr University's naturopathic medical program. The inter-institutional relationships are now expanding to selected chiropractic and AOM programs. His original NIH R-25 education grant forged a significant relationship with a local massage school. In 2003-2005, he was a leader in the National Education Dialogue to Advance Integrated Health Care: Creating Common Ground. He has also helped convene significant integrative practice policy summits in 2001 and again in 2010 at the Georgetown Conference Center. This year Haramati, the founding vice chair and key organizer of the Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine, also took a role on the Council of Advisers for the Academic Consortium for Complementary and Alternative Health Care. He began creating a committee of educator leaders of each consortium, plus representative from his extensive European contacts, toward a international integrative education conference in late 2012. Somehow it wasn't a surprise when, earlier this year, he was also honored as a teacher and scholar by medical science educators. Those who know him will realize that there is a case building here that single malt scotch can be a valuable healing agent in dissolving barriers between the healthcare disciplines.
 Chanda Hinton
By most measures, over the past 5 years The Chanda Plan Foundation
has done extraordinary work to secure resources to help under-served
consumers who could benefit from integrative practices. The foundation
has raised and dispensed to patients over $400,000 from individuals and
foundations. Work in the legislature of the state of Colorado led to the
passage of House Bill 1047 (HB09-1047; 2009) that mandates the Integrative Medical Therapies (IMT) pilot program to study outcomes of integrative care in a disabled population covered through Medicaid. The project is a 3 year pilot program that will provide acupuncture, massage and
chiropractic to Medicaid recipients with long-term disabilities.The Foundation has also developed an adaptive yoga program
for veterans. These Chanda Plan Foundation programs have a common focus
on assisting people with disabilities to gain access to integrative
treatments. What is most remarkable, however, is that the power behind
the Chanda Plan Foundation, founder Chanda Hinton, is herself disabled after an accidental bullet from a 22 rifle hit her spine
between C-5 and C-6
at age 9. The infectiously positive Hinton states
matter-of-factly: "I'm a quad in a power chair with a service dog." I
would say, as I am sure the legislators she lobbied would agree, that
Hinton is power in a power chair and exceedingly charming at that. Most recently Hinton is expanding a relationship with the integrative medicine program at the University of Colorado
for research support. In November, Hinton contacted the NIH NCCAM to
explore potential funding. If it is "real world research" NCCAM wants,
the agency will find nothing more real than this.
 Rick Rosen, MA, LMBT
Rick Rosen, MA, LMBT is a North Carolina massage therapist and co-owner of the Body Therapy Institute. For the last 18 months, Rosen has diligently worked to fill an important institutional gap in the massage field; namely, creating an organization dedicated entirely to advancing massage education. Rosen's Alliance for Massage Therapy Education, which he serves as executive director, aggregated its first members and held its founding conference in June 2010 where a governing board of respected massage educators was elected. In November, the Alliance announced results of a survey of over 300 educators which found strong support for investing in the teaching abilities of massage educators. Subsequently, the Alliance published a white paper through which it kicked off a National Teacher Education Standards Project. Rosen was inducted earlier this year into a Massage Therapy Hall of Fame, perhaps, in the spirit of the 2008 Obama peace prize, out of hope for what will come rather than services already accomplished. Happily, steps the Alliance has taken under Rosen's direction suggest that he may fare better in his promise to massage educators than Obama has fared in peace-making.
 Christine Goertz, DC, PhD
As the health reform-initiated Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute
(PCORI) steps up to its charge to strategically disseminate over
$630-million a year in comparative effectiveness research (CER) funds, Christine Goertz, DC, PhD, vice chancellor for research and health policy at Palmer College, will be in a unique position. The CER movement has long-recognized complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) as an important field of inquiry. In fact, the PCORI Section 6301 of reform law
requires that the Board of Governors include at least one "state
licensed integrative healthcare practitioner." Goertz, with the support
of US Senator Tom Harkin and multiple integrative practice
organizations, received the appointment last September. Goertz should be
comfortable in this role. She was also the first licensed CAM program
officer for for the NIH National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. An Integrator adviser,
Goertz was a principal organizer of the multidisciplinary and
multi-stakeholder policy strategy conference in September 2010. Her
informal charge with PCORI will be to represent integrative practice
thinking that does not appear to be otherwise represented in this
powerful, semi-independent agency.
 5. Pioneering Integrative MDs and iMOSAIC: For Clinical Courage and 2010 Collaboration
Integrator adviser Bill Manahan, MD writes: "My idea is
to give your top 10 people award to all the MD's and DO's who have
had the courage to go beyond what conventional medicine labels as 'standard of care.' When Cochrane tells us that only 36% of
what we do in Western medicine is based on good science, you would
think our profession would be very open to figuring out more about that
other 64%. Very strange that, as a group, (MDs) are not more open to 'other ways of doing things.' I would vote that the award for go to
all the members of AHMA, ACAM, A4M, AAEM, ISSSEEM, ICIM,
IFM, CAHCIM and all the other groups of practitioners that I am
forgetting who are boldly and courageously expanding the boundaries
of how we can help our patients in the best and safest possible ways." Manahan's note came as I was considering acknowledging the leaders of 4 of these organizations for collaborating to co-host the iMOSAIC conference in April 6-10, 2011. It is a sign of maturation that these often irascible, pioneering types are finding ways they can benefit their fields, and human health, by banding together rather than merely stubbornly pursuing their separate ways.
 Mary Jo Kreitzer, RN, PhD, FAAN
Those who follow the development of the influential Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine (CAHCIM) will known that just one of the 46 member academic health center programs is directed by a nurse. This exceptional leader is the University of Minnesota's Mary Jo Kreitzer, RN, PhD, FAAN. Kreitzer's Center for Spirituality and Healing celebrated its 15th year of operations in December 2010. Notably, the 2010 International Year of the Nurse was also the year when Kreitzer and the center began to host the first ever Integrative Health & Healing, Doctor of Nursing Practice Program. Kreitzer, a past CAHCIM vice chair, has promoted multiple research, education and clinical collaborations with such institutions as Northwestern Health Sciences University, Allina Hospitals & Clinics, and Bastyr University. Her continuous commitment to a future characterized by a healing orientation is evident in the Center's leadership in health coaching, including the September 2010 summit, and in wellness-oriented programs for consumers. At the same time, Kreitzer does not shy from policy battles. She raised questions publicly in this Integrator article in October, about the appropriateness of the AMA making $70-million off CPT royalties when that guild opposes independent practice by nurses. The Center's broad perch and web of health-focused relationships and programs suggests that Kreitzer may have Wayne Gretsky's ability to position her Center where the puck is going.
 Alan Gaby, MD
In the world of integrative medicine, everyone seems to have a book in the works. Yet the publication of the 1374 page volume, Nutritional Medicine, 30-years
in the writing, by the internationally renown clinician-expert Alan
Gaby, MD, is a moment of singular significance. In my November 2010 interview with Gaby,
he notes that his coming year will be devoted to speaking and
rolling out the text to new audiences. His positioning of the book as valuable to the public health is both astute and timely. The book imbues
wisdom gained through analysis of over 30,000 nutritional medicine papers with
clinical experience showing that there are frequently positive
side-effects when a clinician uses nutritional approaches. Will Gaby's tour find ears more
open in a mainstream medical culture that is beginning to poke its nose
under the tent of the health-creation paradigm? More importantly,
will Gaby successfully position the text as allied with these trends, and
thus put wind in the volume's sales? It would be a shame if the product of
Gaby's long labor did not gain a place in the education of the next generation of medical doctors.
 Cheryl Hawk, DC, PhD
Chiropractic researcher and educator Cheryl Hawk, DC, PhD, CHES, the 2003 American Chiropractic Association (ACA) Researcher of the Year had an eventful 2010. Her new roles suggest the changing face of the chiropractic profession. The ACA partnered with the National Wellness Institute to roll out its new Certified Chiropractic Wellness Specialist Program. Hawk, specialty-trained in the field, is one of the program's 2 core faculty. When a national summit on standards for health coaching was convened, Hawk, research director at Logan College, was identified to participate on behalf of the chiropractic field. When a position opened on the multidisciplinary, policy-oriented Research Working Group of the Academic Consortium for Complementary and Alternative Health Care, Hawk was invited to join, and did. Meantime, following her own interest in integrative issues and sensing growing interest in such a publication, Hawk founded the peer-reviewed online journal Topics in Integrative Health Care for which she serves as editor. Coaching. Collaboration. Partnership for wellness. Integration. Attention to research. Hawk's 2010 portfolio may project chiropractic's 21st century persona.
 Michael Cronin, ND
The naturopathic profession has a presence in the integration dialogue that is beyond its small size. Two decisions in 2010 by Phoenix clinician Michael Cronin, ND, may significantly shape the next decade of that profession's influence. First, Cronin led the founding of the Naturopathic Physicians Research Institute (NPRI) in order to organize the NDs around a practical, real world research agenda of "exploring the ways we practice." Cronin then chose to run for president-elect of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (AANP). He took on a candidate backed by the association's administration and 3 recent past presidents, arguing that the association's leadership could do better not just in the area of science but in both state and federal policy. Cronin also argued in his campaign that the AANP's governance model "has had the unintended consequence of limiting the enthusiastic
contributions of our own members and board." He won with 60% of the vote. Time will tell whether Cronin's two decision in 2010 will lead the AANP in ways that will be more effective for NDs or have additional value to other integrative practice interests. Meantime, this past president and co-founder of the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine will also recall of 2010 that he was selected as cover-boy for Phoenix Magazine's Best Doctors issue. (Note: I serve with Cronin on the NPRI board.)
10. Who Would You Add?
Who have I forgotten who has made particularly remarkable contributions in integrative practice in 2010? Send me a note with your idea or ideas. I will publish suggestions I receive in a
future Integrator. Send to
johnweeks@theintegratorblog.com.
______________
 Rustom Roy, MSc, PhD
 Pali Delevitt
Best to you all for 2011.
| Resumes are useful in employment decisions. I provide this background so that you may understand what informs the work which you may employ in your own. I have been involved as an organizer-writer in the emerging fields......more |  |
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