John Weeks

December 12, 2020

In the Time of George Floyd’s Murder: Update on Actions from 18 Integrative Health Organizations and Institutions

The murder of George Floyd, and its clearly non-anomalous nature, tooth-picked open the eyes of many white people to the depths of racism, of systematic intrusion of bigotry, and built in barriers to the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness for vast sets of people of color in the U.S. population. One place the need for re-education in places high and low was evident in the commitment to “deepening my understanding of systemic racism” from Bill Gates. He was explaining his choice for the book at the top of list of 2020 reading: The New Jim Crow. Multiple integrative health and medicine organizations responded to Floyd’s murder with their own statements of solidarity, and of commitment. I reported these just 10 days after Floyd’s death on June 7 (8 organizations) then a second set on June 28 (13 more). As my own commitment, I closed the latter with a promise to check in with these organizations 6 months later to see how they have acted on their commitments. Here is the report-back to the community.
December 12, 2020

The Andrew Weil Center: Primary Engine for the (Global) Growth of Academic Integrative Medicine

The Integrator Top 10 list ten years ago honored the work of what is now the University of Arizona Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine. I apologized then for the oversight in not honoring their leadership earlier. In truth, I might have done so virtually every year. The simple fact of the matter is that, while one might cringe at any part of a collaborative movement being characterized as the “epicenter” – as University of Arizona’s president characterized the Center recently – the Center has clearly earned the title if what we are talking about is the expansion of “integrative” in academic medicine. Through its 1855 Fellows, through its Integrative Medicine in Residency partners in 99 medical schools, through graduates promoting the integrative paradigm and practice in dozens of nations, and via government-funded projects involving multiple integrative professions, the Center founded by Andrew Weil, MD in 1994 is the gift that keeps on giving. I reached Weil and the Center’s long-time executive director Victoria Maizes, MD, to take a look at the program, its accomplishments, challenges, and what’s ahead.
November 29, 2020

The Moving Child: 3 Part Film Advances Dance Movement Therapy in Trauma Treatment and Creative Arts Therapy Mix

The project began as 15 minute DVD that was to be an in-office tool to help explain developmental movement and the work of dance movement therapists (DMTs). Perhaps because the need for resources about this part of the ascending interest in creative arts therapy was so great, the short film mushroomed into 30 taped interviews. This wealth of demonstrations, case studies and dialogues were then shaped by the project director/producer, Hana Kamea Kemble, RCC, BC-DMT into the 3-part The Moving Child documentary. With both trauma and creative arts gaining higher profile, at the NIH National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) and elsewhere, the timing appears to be particularly strong for this well-produced documentary to launch DMTs and therapeutic movement as a presence in multiple healthcare contexts.
November 28, 2020

Two Decades of the Mayo Model of Integrative Medicine: The “Societal Thing” and “Philosophic Challenges”

In 2001, Mayo Clinic received a transformative jolt of integrative energy at a fortuitous moment. The institution was about to celebrate the opening of the 21-story Gonda Building. What a Minnesota news account called a “transformative project” was funded originally with a $45-million bequest from Southern Californians Leslie and Susan Gonda. Their daughter, Lucy Gonda, then an activist and philanthropist in the emerging integrative medicine field, recognized an opportunity. There would likely be no better time to stretch herself for her most significant integrative grant. She piggy-backed onto the celebration of her parents’ gift to throw in the spotlight a struggling, nearly invisible integrative medicine operation. This article examines what has been built since the injection from the “god-mother of integrative medicine at Mayo.”