integrative health

January 26, 2020

Is Integrative Medicine Continuing Education Threatened by Proposed ACCME Guidelines? Part 1 “Content Validity”

Should accredited continuing medical education providers for integrative medicine be prohibited from training medical doctors to practice integrative modalities that aren’t “generally accepted within the profession of medicine as appropriate for the care of patients”? What impact might this have on efforts – for instance – to shift chronic pain treatment toward non-pharmacologic approaches that most of medicine doesn’t “generally” include? Might giving arbiters of science in a disease model this power put the brakes on efforts to shift clinical care from managing disease to creating health? These other significant questions are on the table for the integrative health field as the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) posts its draft revision of accreditation standards. The changes, targeting issues throughout CME, have particular challenges for the integrative medicine field. The comment period closes February 21, 2020.
January 26, 2020

Reflections from Rick Hecht, MD on Academic Consortium Meeting with ACCME President Graham McMahon, MD, MMSc

Prior to publication of my article on the proposed new standards on “content validity” from the Accreditation Commission for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), I circulated it to a few leaders in the field for comments. In the process, I learned that a team from the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine and Health (“the Consortium”) recently had a conference call with Graham McMahon, MD, MMSc, ACCME president and chief executive officer. Saturday morning, January 25, 2020 I spoke with Rick Hecht, MD, the Consortium chair, who was part of the conference cal. He has had other recent discussions with key colleagues in the CME office of his home institution. Hecht’s comments offer some perspective on ACCME’s current areas of focus in CME. I have assembled his comments in the following interview format and secured his approval prior to publication.
January 11, 2020

Due January 31: Call for Your Perspectives for an Open Forum on Integrative Health and Climate Change

In July 2019 I published a piece entitled Harvard Medical School Grand Rounds Powerfully Interlocks Integrative Medicine and Climate Agendas. It was based on an event led by Peter Wayne, PhD. Now Wayne and two colleagues with the Osher Collaborative for Integrative Medicine have published a related commentary that makes a direct claim in its title: Integrative Medicine Is a Good Prescription for Patients and Planet (in open access throughout January). The authors initiate an intriguing and expansive case for myriad ways that this assertion may be so. For instance: how might an increase in mindfulness diminish shopping addiction, and thus resource consumption? This column is a call for your perspectives of up to 250 words on angles and arguments that support – or oppose – that bold claim. I will select from and publish responses along with photos and brief bio data of contributors in a future Integrator piece. The findings are meant to deepen an evidence-informed dialogue on this topic. Might the integrative health-climate change connection re-frame much more broadly the transformative meaning of this movement?
December 21, 2019

Coming of the Light: The 2019 Integrator Top 10 for Policy and Action in Integrative Health and Medicine

The Integrator Blog News & Reports annually marks the winter solstice with a Top 10 for Policy and Action in Integrative Health and Medicine. In the selection of the Top 10, “the accent is on the affirmative” as the jazzman sings. Thus the Coming of the Light from individuals and organizations in the field making positive contributions to shift the medical industry toward a system that focuses on creating health. Less positive things sometimes make the list. Integrator articles are now published at johnweeks-integrator.com/posts with content going back to 2006 at the original Integrator site, Prior Top 10 lists, a sort of Cliff Notes of the movement’s history, are linked at the bottom of this column. Below are the Top 10 for 2019. Happy Solstice!