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Annual Review This is the 6th annual report on Lotus, the Educational Center for Integrative healing and wellness, a not-for profit educational organization which now enters its seventh year of service. Lotus has membership available for health practitioners of all backgrounds who are credentialed and in good standing in their professional fields. This year again we have continued our mission of educating community and health professionals alike on the growing field of integrative medicine. SUMMARY OF LITERATURE 2002-2003 The issues addressed in the published literature in the last year have been: 1) to more accurately define the role of vitamins in general care; 2) to more accurately define the relationship and ethical dilemmas involved as patients and doctors alike face the growing field of complementary and alternative medicine; 3) to address the complexities and real concerns of herbal medicines, which are not regulated, may be adulterated and may potentially lead to life threatening drug interactions, yet at the same time, botanical medicines may provide potential new opportunities for research and healthcare in general. CME: LOTUS CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS 2002 through 2/03 In academic year 2002 our monthly continuing medical education meetings were moved to Waterbury Hospital. The year began with a 2001-2002 integrative medicine review by Dr. Beatriz Olson, followed by homeopathic treatment of ADHD by Dr. Christine Girard. Dr. David Smith spoke on his research and experience with Tibetan medicine. Drs. Eric Olson and Jim Prado gave an erudite evidence-based lecture on the integrative care of back pain with a combined orthopaedic and chiropractic perspective. Yes, it is true that these two professions can work together without competing to the benefit of patients. Dr. Seth Segall updated us on meditation and the continually growing list of ailments helped by this mindful technique. He reminded us of the powerful effects of meditation to alter frontal cortex blood flow and increase alpha waves on EEG, as well as and to decrease sympatho-adrenal axis activation. Meditation helps to lower BP, to decrease anxiety and depression in cancer patients, decreases relapse rate of depression, improves fibromyalgia, and any condition that benefits from decreasing the sympathetic flight-or-fight response. Dr.
Peter Zilahy presented an update on acupuncture and recent evidence
revealing that stimulated acupuncture sites, when studied with functional
MRI, indeed activate areas in the brain that correspond to sites in
the periphery thought to be affected by the acupuncture treatments.
In addition to nausea and dental pain, acupuncture seems effective in
patients with fibromyalgia and migraine headache. In
January 2003 we moved to the Executive Board Room at Waterbury Hospital,
and the food got a little better! WATERBURY HOSPITAL AND LOTUS PARTNERSHIP We met with the vice-president for clinical affairs at Waterbury Hospital, Dr. Steve Schnieder, who expressed continuing support for the hospital involvement with Lotus and the organization’s mission. We commented that physician participation has occurred by few physicians but not as much as we had anticipated. Dr. Schneider noted that continuing medical education attendance by physicians is down country wide. We also met with Dr. Houcome director of residency training at Waterbury Hospital who was not aware that Lotus was a resource for residents, while saddened to hear this we were pleased that we had opened a new door for resident education. HONORED FOR EXTRA-ORDINARY EFFORT This year we honor and congratulate Dr. Jim Prado (DC) for his work with Pat Clark on our internet communications and improvement of our web-site (lotusmedical.org), this has taken enormous time on his part and it shows. We also thank Dr. Prado for his development of clear criteria for presentation at Lotus meetings. And for his continuing efforts with the community education projects as Education Chair. Catherine Lavoie, our CEO, is also congratulated on the leadership, commitment, and love she bestows on Lotus. Catherine’s energies are invaluable to Lotus, we are all grateful. CHANGES One of our board members, our beloved naturopathic physician Dr. Christine Girard, moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma to help lead the organization Cancer Care of America. She has remained involved with our group and will be coming to educate us on Cancer Care this spring. Vera Dacey, RN retired this year from urology associates in Waterbury and now volunteers one day a week at the Lotus office, we are very grateful for her work on behalf of our organization. Members of our organization, Drs. Marc Albini, Phil Mongelluzo and Beatriz Olson have been involved with helping St Mary’s Hospital in Waterbury begin to credential alternative practitioners such as chiropractors and acupuncturists. ACADEMIC ENDEAVORS, NEWS, PUBLICATIONS BY OUR MEMBERS Many of our members were actively engaged in teaching or delivering Grand Rounds at local sites and universities, among these presenters were Barbara Shaker APRN, Sharon DeJoseph APRN, and Maureen Oumano APRN. Dr. Beatriz Olson, and Dr. Eric Olson, Dr. Christine Girard, Carol Ann Lucia, and Usha Kanithi, PT, Dr Peter Treiz, and Dr. Seth Segall. Dr. Eric Olson was featured in the New York times for his advanced techniques in arthroscopic shoulder surgery! Lotus was featured in Waterbury Hospital’s Health Bridge Magazine. Dr. Jim Prado and Catherine Lavoie were featured in Country Life. Dr. Peter Zilahy was featured in the Waterbury Republican on Metronome therapy to address attention deficit problems in kids. Lastly, both Dr. Dave Pavlik and Dr. Beatriz Olson had article accepted for publication in academic journals of their individual fields. In addition Dr. Jim Prado and Dr. Chrisitne Girard attended the Harvard Conference on Complementary and Alternative Medicine both in 2002 and this week in 2003! Dr. Seth Robert Segall published his book called Encountering Buddhism: western Psychology and Buddhist teachings, published by State University of New York Press COMMUNITY PROGRAMS Be-Well
Center and Evergreen Club of Waterbury Hospital. FINANCES We began the 2002 year with $84! Membership fees of $150 for 25 full paying members in 2002, our budget was then $3750.00 with estimated cost of 3200.00 to run operations for the year (rent 150/month, phone50/month, and an estimated a $60/month, + mailings. One of the goals for 2002 was to improve our web-site and public face. We cancelled our phone since it was not actively used and was a monthly expense of $50.00 that we could do without. The project of improving our web-site was slightly more expensive than originally budgeted for since parts of the web site had to be re-created. In addition, at the end of the year our CEO, Catherine Lavoie APRN, personally financed a projector for Lotus purchased through E-bay for our Powerpoint presentations since we had to return the projector that had been on loan to us for one year. This projector cost $1410.00 and the hope was that this could eventually be paid for by Lotus. To be able to maintain our expenses within our budget for 2003, with our current membership and budgeted expenses of $2600-3000 for the year, we have decided that Dr. Beatriz Olson will purchase the projector from Ms. Lavoie, and rent it to Lotus for presentations for $25/ month. This will allow for membership fees of 2003 to cover the usual expenses budgeted for Lotus. Finally, because our membership has not grown as robustly as we expected, we have not been financially able to move forward with the idea of funding meditation and other healing programs for the community programs that could benefit from this. We are looking at other options of increasing income for Lotus, such as creating a speaker’s bureau, consulting out to bigger firms, and perhaps writing grants for support of Lotus by local philanthropic organizations. CONCLUSION In summary as of March 2003, Lotus is now in its seventh successful year and its members continue to grow and transform our community through our evidence-based educational efforts and academic endeavors. One of the advantages of being a member and active participant of Lotus is that we grow as health professionals and care-takers by sharing in dialogue that comes from colleagues trained in varied health professions who share the goal of serving and healing through knowledge and compassion. I continue to be proud of our work as a group, the individual efforts of all of our members who volunteer their time, their intellect, and their hearts to help Lotus in its mission.
Beatriz
Olson, MD, FACP |
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