Let food be your medicine, and medicine be your food.
— Hippocrates
In this ninth anniversary issue we turn our attention to health and healing. Historically, health has meant freedom from disease, and healing hasn't been a treatment, or even a common word, in the doctor's approach to patients' conditions, except for the surgeon's reference to wound healing.
Based on the articles in this issue, I'd like to suggest that health and healing are broad in scope and multidimensional. We must increasingly define health for ourselves and for our patients in the three realms: health of mind, health of body, and health of spirit.
Physician Health
One of the questions I added to the Fall 2003 Northwest Permanente (NWP) Physicians' Worklife Survey was “How would you rate your health in the following three areas: Mind, Body, Spirit?” We had 500 responses out of 750 physicians, so these results are statistically significant. The rating in percentage is expressed as the top two points—“very good” or “excellent”—on a five-point scale. The results are graphically displayed in Figure 1. Physicians rated their health of mind - 86%; health of body—81%, health of spirit—71%. The follow-up question was: Would you like emphasis on, or education in, the following areas? (Figure 2). Under mind, I included and they chose: psychological hardiness—40%, creativity—24%, meditation—20%. Under body, they chose: fitness—51%, physical activity—44%, nutrition—23%; under spirit, they chose present in the moment—29%, discovery of meaning—19%, deep listening—12%. This was a first attempt at surveying how physicians rate themselves in mind, body, and spirit in the context of their worklife. Many physicians expressed appreciation that such a question appeared on a survey that routinely asks about clinic team practices, visits, and patient relations. They felt permission to talk about mind, body, and spirit and to include these in their clinical practice, although physicians may not yet know how to do that well. Because this survey was a statistically significant representation of NWP, I am assuming similar interest across the Permanente Medical Groups. In Spring 2004, the Northwest Healthy Eating and Healthy Active Weight (HEHAW) Group offered a conference on “Promoting Physical Activity.” This conference was a first intervention to meet the needs of 44% of Worklife Survey respondents (“Body”). In Spring 2005, this group's follow-up conference focused on “Nutrition and Health.”
Figure 1.
Figure 2.
Nutritional Health
How is your nutritional health? I wondered about mine so I attended the first Nutrition and Health Conference, sponsored by Andrew Weil, MD, Director of the Program of Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona School of Medicine, in March 2004. It was a remarkable experience for me. I learned a great deal about nutrition, which was personally helpful, and I returned with good information for readers of The Permanente Journal (TPJ). At the close of the meeting, there was a community symposium on the state of the nation's health and the importance of understanding and practicing better nutrition. A Call-to-Action was read and simultaneously issued to the national media (see page 5). We are publishing this national press release to make you aware of it and to meet your need for information on nutrition.
End of Life
In this issue the article about end of life, Mario Milch, MD, and Richard D Brumley, MD, talk about a good death, and “dying well” (page 28). That is a healthy spiritual state to achieve. When Carol Evans, RNP, addresses malnutrition in the elderly she notes it is a common manifestation of depression (page 38). Treating depression and restoring an appetite for good food to nourish an aging body enhances the health of the body and the mind and uplifts the spirit.
Healing Metabolism
In her article Healing Metabolism, Elizabeth Sutherland, ND, asserts that before we expect to change our obesity-prone metabolism through a diet, we may first need to heal or normalize our metabolism (page 16). Keith Bachman, MD, and Brenda Buck, PhD, present the health practice of enrolling the premorbidly obese into a new weight management program in a truly engaging effort to prevent the need for bariatric surgery and its life-threatening consequences (page 52). This approach exemplifies the advocacy by Manuel Diaz, MD, and Brad Larsen, CRNA, for assessing a person's readiness for change in Preparing for Successful Surgery (page 23).
Postoperative Health
As for postoperative advice I recently witnessed, is it really the best, most advanced and sophisticated medical thinking to say, once a nonmetastatic carcinoma has been skillfully excised, “Let's just watch this really closely for reoccurrence.” Isn't there a place for physicians to consider what we can do to prevent reoccurrence by means such as assessing and altering our physical environment, our lifestyle, our food and nutrition, our stressors, our sleep pattern, our isolation, social support and community, our physical habits, our psychological state, our meditation practice, our antioxidant levels? That is a healthy practice.
Many physicians … felt permission to talk about mind, body, and spirit and to include these in their clinical practice
A Life in Medicine
Anna Luise Kirkengen, MD, PhD, a primary care physician from Oslo, Norway, writes in Encountering Particulars: A Life in Medicine, that: “Our challenge is understanding … literally, to stand below … to be in the same place and, from there, to share somebody else's perspective” (page 19). We, as primary care doctors, have not only the privilege of coming close, but also the obligation to come closer: to familiarize ourselves with the lives, hopes, intentions, defeats, and longings of our patients—respectfully.
Meditation, Prayer and Spiritual Healing
A special feature of this health and healing issue is A Symposium on Meditation, Prayer and Spiritual Healing (page 62). Five experts present the evidence for, and their experience of, incorporating one or more of these practices into their treatment approach. Marilyn Schlitz, PhD, presents the overview from her international perspective as the Director of Research and Education at the Institute of Noetic Sciences in Northern California. In Spirituality in the Medical Encounter: The Grace of Presence, Dr Sutherland explores enhancing the spirit of both the patient and clinician. Naomi Newhouse, CNM, recounts a spiritual encounter of a crosscultural healthy birth with the whole family present. Charles Elder, MD, demonstrates, through the current literature, the effective outcomes of meditation as an internal medicine practice. And Chaplain Kurt Smidt-Jernstrom relates his hospital practice of spirituality in assisting patients coping with serious illness and death.
Soul of the Healer
Finally, we are proud to announce the publication this summer of Soul of the Healer: The Art & Stories of The Permanente Journal: The First Seven Years. Motivated by our readers' comments, we created this book to bring together the art and stories they note are so beautiful and uplifting.
The editors hope you enjoy a healthy and healing journey as you read through this issue and our subsequent publications.