I have just returned from beautiful Tuscany in Italy where I attended the first ever Annual Conference for Integrative Medicine. This meeting was organised by Saundra C. Blum, MS, CHT, CRT in collaboration with Karen Maier RN, Ginny Mackles, LMHC, Raffaello Di Megio and Suzanne Roth. The conference was aimed at finding a way to promote the integration of alternative medicine into mainstream hospitals all over the world. Saundra C. Blum, MS, CHT, CRT is a past life regression therapist and writer who works with other therapists to promote this idea in America. They are working with and have the support of the Planetree Alliance Hospitals.
Planetree’s Mission and Vision is and I quote:
Vision: As a global catalyst and leader Planetree promotes the development and implementation of innovative models of healthcare that focus on healing and nurturing body, mind and spirit.
Mission: Planetree is a non-profit organization that provides education and information in a collaborative community of healthcare organizations, facilitating efforts to create patient-centred care in healing environments.)
The Planetree model will also be implemented in new Planetree hospitals in both The Netherlands and Japan in the very near future.
Saundra’s vision is to bring doctors, healthcare professionals and alternative healers from all countries together to incorporate integrative medicine into hospitals worldwide.
Karen Maier RN and Ginny Mackles, LMHC work at Northern Westchester Hospital which is a designated Planetree Hospital and member of the Planetree Alliance. This hospital brings doctors, nurses and alternative therapists together working to help everyone in their care. (Again I quote : Northern Westchester Hospital is dedicated to patient-centred and family-focused healthcare and promotes healing and wellness by integrating time-honoured complementary therapies with Western evidence-based scientific medicine.)
To me this is a fantastic idea because it gives everyone a choice of the health care methods that are best for them. So often there is such a divide between conventional medicine and alternative healing when the only thing that is really important is patient excellence. If they so wish the patient should be allowed to experience different healing modules like hypnosis, Reiki, acupuncture and Reflexology before and after an operation if it can help improve their recovery. The results speak for themselves because patients are feeling better and healing quicker as a result of what is happening at these forward thinking hospitals.
I have spent many years working with people suffering from countless problems both physical and mental and I know from experience that by integrating different therapies together, often outstanding results can be achieved. Now is perhaps the time for the medical profession to begin to see their patients as whole people with a mind, body and soul that needs whenever possible to be completely integrated and healed. Rather than continuing with the conventional western way of just looking at the illness or the malignant tumour as being something separate from the actual patient themselves.
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