a mission from the heart

From the Long Term Care Medicine 2012 meeting in San Antonio, AMDA dedicated to Long Term Care Medicine, "A Mission from the Heart."

Two years ago, and again last year, we presented sessions asking physicians to have open minds and open hearts, and to open dialogue regarding complementary medicine. Both of the past two years we had 35-40 attendees in what are known as "concurrent sessions." But this year, our session on Pain Management: Pharmacologic and non Pharmacologic drew nearly 200 attendees and our session room was closed due to capacity 10 minutes prior to our session.

The weight of evidence is compelling many physicians to express interest - and one of the most moving parts of the day is having some physicians publicly and some privately, acknowledge their own experiences and interests.

My colleagues for this session were Dr Michael Gloth, who teaches at Johns Hopkins Medical School and Dr Chuck Crecelius, a past president of AMDA and chair of our public policy committee. Neither of my colleagues themselves practice complementary techniques, but they were supportive of having open minds and open hearts, and I am grateful to them for supporting this dialogue.

The program committee also permitted me to do a one hour session demonstrating techniques from a perspective of Komyo Reiki Kai. I was careful to be supportive of all styles of Reiki, but wanted to use Komyo at this session for its simplicity, its motto "Go placidly in praise and blame" and its use of Hatsurei Ho as a Shoden technique. There was no thought of teaching a "level" of doing any Reiju in this setting today, but there was an intention of allowing physicians to feel Reiki energy, and to learn a few limited Reiki tools for self mindfulness. Our Keynote Speaker, Dr. Robert Wicks had set a tone by stating that physicians can share a sense of their own peace with others. He stressed the "necessity of appreciating the building blocks of mindfulness," and i was seeking to provide some simple tools - for use only on oneself.

What i was able to demonstrate is the Gokai, the 5 principles of Reiki, breathing, Gassho, and I was able to take 50 physicians through the elements of Hatsurei Ho as described in the Komyo Style, Sitting, Mokunen, Kenyoku, Joshin Kokyu Ho, Seishin Toitsu, and Mokunen.

Perhaps the ripples from this will include some physicians being more open to work with Reiki practitioners, perhaps a few physicians will seek a Reiki teacher - at the least I believe there will be more discussion - and hopefully more open minds and more open hearts.

My colleagues still know me as a conventional evidence based physician, I have been fairly clear that there are Reiki practitioners and teachers far more knowledgeable about Reiki than myself - and that my mission in the sessions was to share my own practice experience, and to encourage dialogue for our patients.