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The Best of Both Worlds |
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By Margie Farnsworth
Gray is the founder of the Center for Health and Wellbeing, which has offices in Bay Park and Hillcrest. Its a practice that specializes in integrative medicine, a blend of traditional medical procedures with so-called complementary and alternative therapies that are backed up with scientific evidence of effectiveness and safety. Since she opened the center in 1999, Gray has added chiropractors, acupuncturists, massage therapists, Oriental medicine specialists and nutritionists to her staff.
We look at the mind, body and spirit continuumthe whole person, says Gray, noting how strongly such factors as emotions and stress influence a persons physical health. And, she adds, its an approach patients are increasingly demanding.
The population has become so well-informed through the Internet and media,Gray says, that they are no longer embracing the disease model of conventional medicine. Theyre looking at prevention and morenatural treatments.
She sees herself as a partner with her patients, encouraging them to be proactive and responsible for their own health, as well as focusing on the bodys natural ability to heal itself. Sometimes, says Gray, we just need to let the body do what it needs to do. We have to get out of our own way. Yes, she will prescribe an antibiotic to treat an infection, but she may also encourage you to meet with a nutritionist and a naturalmedicine specialist to help you find out why youre so run-down.
My challenge is to determine what a patient needs for overall health and well-being in the long term, what they want and whats realistic, says Gray.
LATE LAST YEAR, Greg Sperber became one of the first in San Diego to be certified as a doctor of acupuncture and Oriental medicine, following nearly five years of cumulative study at Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, the only facility in the area that teaches acupuncture, and one of the first in the nation to offer the advanced degree. A graduate of medical school, he decided to pursue an alternative course after an herbal formula successfully relieved him of recurring muscle spasms in his lega condition traditional medicine had not helped.
I recognized that I wanted to be a healer, not someone who just treats disease, Sperber says. Acupuncture, along with massage therapy, has rapidly become one of the more accepted forms of complementary and alternative medicine, he says, with a 10-20 percent increase each year in new patients. He believes the reason is simple: People see the results.
Sperber, who has been a licensed acupuncturist for 10 years, uses the procedure, often in combination with individualized herbal formulas, for a variety of ailments.
Chronic and acute pain relief from the backor joints is sought by many patients, and he also commonly treats gastrointestinal problems, gynecological disorders, high blood pressure, infertility, depression and allergies.
Parents are more frequently seeking acupuncture for their children, Sperber says. Common childhood complaints that acupuncture helps, he says, include earaches, fever, bedwetting and attention-deficit disorder.
WHAT WAS CONSIDERED NEW AGE just a few years ago is increasingly gaining acceptance in traditionally conservative, mainstream medicine. Consider some figures: A 2003 survey by the American Hospital Association shows the number of hospitals offering integrative medicine services doubled from 8 percent in 1998 to more than 16 percent in 2002. Patient demand is cited as the number-one reason. San Diegobased American Specialty Health, the nations largest organization for complementary healthcare benefits programs, currently administers programs for 12.1 million members, compared with 2.3 million in 1998. Chiropractic,
massage therapy and acupuncture are the most popular services, says George DeVries, chief executive officer of ASH. About 35 percent of U.S. adults use at least one form of complementary and alternative medicine, according to a 2005 report from Harvard Medical School.ONE OF SAN DIEGOS most visible proponents of integrative medicine is Dr. Mimi Guarneri, medical director of the Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine. Boardcertified in cardiology, internal medicine, nuclear medicine and holistic medicine, Guarneri is prominently featured in the recent PBS documentary The New Medicine, which shows how a growing mind-bodylifestyle approach is revolutionizing the conventional diagnosis-and-drugs method.
Earlier this year, she published The Heart Speaks, which advocates the need to teach cardiac patients about prevention and lifestyle changes in tandem with such accepted procedures as drugs and surgery.
The trend toward mainstream medicine merging into an integrative approach will continue, Guarneri predicts, as consumers continue to learn more about its benefits and as baby boomers march onward to old age.
This is the group thats always challenged authority, she says. They dont want to get old by breaking down. They want to get there in a more energetic and graceful manner.
Guarneri describes her experience with healing touch, where a holistic nurse successfully treated her for a viral infection, as an epiphany in her acceptance of using complementary and alternative health measures.
The noninvasive procedure is based on the premise that body, mind and emotions form an energy field that can be accessed; illness occurs when that field is disrupted, and wellness returns when energy is reordered into its natural pattern. (Guarneri and the holistic nurse, Rauni King, are cofounders of the Scripps center.)
Healing touch is used, and taught, at the Scripps center, and Guarneri says its results are impressive. We have data on 303 patients who received healing touch and guided imagery [imagination through visualization] prior to and following openheart surgery, she says. We found a 50 percent reduction in patients pain and anxiety.
Guarneri believes energy is the next paradigm of medicine.
What I like to call the biofield system is wide open for exploration, she says. The minute we have the technology to assess the bodys energy system, youre going to see whole new areas for integrative medicine.
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