- John Weeks, Writer, Speaker, Change Agent. Click below to subscribe to the Integrator
- johnweeks@theintegratorblog.com
academic medicine
June 8, 2019
Shortly after my recent post, “How the Backlash to Oregon’s Plan to Taper Opioids with Integrative Approaches Missed the Mark”, I received an e-note from national pain leader Sean Mackey, MD, PhD. The letterhead of the chief of the division of pain medicine at Stanford University and co-chair of the US HHS National Pain Strategy was the vehicle through which Mackey and 100 co-signers successfully campaigned for the Oregon Health Authority to prevent forced tapering “of certain patient populations.” Mackey wrote that he presumed we had shared interests in bettering care, yet he thought there was a harmful “negativity” in my article: “May I suggest rather than a ‘missed opportunity’ message, you could easily frame it as ‘forced opioid tapering defeated – here is what we need to do next …'”
June 7, 2019
On May 7-10, 2019, I attended the top international integrative health research conference that comes around each year. The 14th International Congress on Complementary Medicine Research drew roughly 400 “delegates” as the Brisbane, Australia hosts welcomed us. We hailed from 34 nations. The turnout to the distant location was about half that when the meeting is hosted in North America or Europe and roughly on par with a 2015 South Korean event. Yet despite or perhaps because of the size and distance new themes emerged and old ones that needed prodding re-emerged. Together these offer an impactful direction for the global integrative research community and for ISCMR, the organization of traditional, complementary and integrative medicine researchers that co-sponsors each of these event.
June 4, 2019
In the United States, the complementary and integrative medicine dialogue about “traditional medicine” typically looks to Asia. The West-meets-East orientation respects the power and influence of Chinese and Indian traditions. Yet in doing so, both local indigenous practices and the roles of traditional, complementary and integrative medicine (TCIM) in Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean are mostly overlooked. The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) recently created a partial remedy for this hemispheric forgetfulness. A two-year collaborative process with representatives of over 20 nations has created a powerful network and opened access to a nation-by-nation bounty of practices, papers, research, and regulations.
April 25, 2019
I recently gave a commencement talk at Northwestern Health Sciences University, the day before Episode One of the last season of Game of Thrones. I chose to inject the sacredness of that day by referencing that other world by presenting the landscape of health and medicine that the graduates were entering as a jockeying between three Houses. In power on the Iron Throne: the House of Volume/Industry. The other two Houses are each insurgencies: the House of Integrative Health and the House of Value-Based Medicine. Can this life-and-death game play out favorably with an alliance between the two insurgencies in a field of health creation?