Lessons from a Flooded Inbox via Google Alerts for

Summary: Toss a switch at Google Alerts and you you can witness the proliferation of integrative medicine and alternative medicine initiatives and coverage. Since August 3, 2011, Google has sent me updates for “Integrative medicine” and “alternative medicine.” The results are astonishing. I include a selection of 40 links – 20 from as many hospital-based integrative clinics. The level of activity got me thinking about the optimal role for the Integrator. I include some thoughts. Thanks to adviser Glenn Sabin for teaching this troglodyte about this exceptional service.

Highlights action in alternative/integrative medicine

New Integrator adviser Glenn Sabin recently opened my eyes to a startling resource. Some of you undoubtedly are already using it. It’s also available to be individualized by each of you.

I had asked Sabin how he knew about certain developments he shared with me on new integrative oncology and integrative clinics, his specialties. Sabin, whose review of my website made it clear that I have one foot in the 19th Century, turned me on to Google Alerts. Tell Google your interests and the Google machine sends
links.

On August 3, 2011 I set myself up for daily alerts for
articles related to “integrative medicine” and “alternative medicine”
and “integrative oncology.”

Have you ever been experienced? Blame the new documentary on Ken Kesey’s Magic Bus tour I recently saw for the lyric. Well, I have. The kaleidoscopic swirls of activity in integrative and alternative medicine are simply astonishing: mainstream news, TV blurbs, integrative clinic promos, new products, blog-blasts from the anti-CAM academics, and, not altogether surprising, a set of fundraisers for integrative medicine services.

Activity was definitely spiked in this period by the July 2011 Consumer Reports survey on CAM use and the August 2011 Penny George Institute group’s survey of CAM use by health professionals. Still, be prepared to be inundated.

To give you a sense, here are some of the alternative/integrative fish hauled in by the Google web during August 2011. The highlights link you to the Google-referenced piece.

Tailoring to your interest

Hospital-based integrative centers

• Chicago’s Alexian Brothers Hospital Network has a complementary and alternative medicine program run by Patrick Massey, MD, PhD. Massey talks up Tai Chi for rheumatoid arthritis.
  
• The cancer center at the University of Rochester had a plant sale to benefit the Wilmot Integrative Oncology Center.

• The Fox News station in San Luis Obisbo, California reports that a Hearst Cancer Center at the French Hospital Medical Center is inviting people to an Integrative Medicine and Cancer Care program.
• Duke Integrative Medicine proudly announced that Adam Perlman, MD, MPH is taking over as director.

• U Arizona’s IM director Victoria Maizes, MD is cites in a widely re-published USA Today article on patients being less than truthful on habit changes.
  
• Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Barrie Cassileth, PhD is interviewed here for the ASCO Post, the newsletter of the mainstream cancer organization.
  
• Thomas Jefferson Health System’s Myrna Brind Center got nice pump in a feature in something called healthymaginations.
• The 4th Annual Malibu Music Emerging Artists fundraiser will partially benefit the Simms-Mann Center for Integrative Oncology at UCLA.
  
• MD Anderson’s use of Yoga therapists in integrative medicine is featured at an internet site, CureTalk.
  
• The Owensboro Medical Health System’s new integrative medicine director Kay Corpus, MD, an Arizona Center Fellow, explains their program.

• The newsletter of the integrative medicine center at the Cleveland Clinic includes a piece on pros and cons of dietary supplements.
• The Allina system is opening a new integrative services at Virginia Piper Cancer Clinic in Fridley, MN.
  
• Moe’s Barbecue is hosting a fundraiser for integrative medicine at Four Seasons in Asheville, North Carolina.

• The Mark Seidman, MD the medical director of the CAM Center at the Henry Ford Health System spoke favorably on the role of prayer in this Detroit Free press article.
  
• Crain’s Detroit Business offered this feature on 6 hospitals that offer alternative medicine.
• Jefferson/Myrna Brind integrative pediatrician Christina DiNicola, MD takes on myths about CAM in pediatrics.
• A site called the Integrator Blog ran a feature on the Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine. 
  

Media & Blogs

• The Consumer Reports survey was picked up in scores of media including KABC Los Angeles and the Hartford Current and .Komo News (“Effective Alternative Therapies”) 

• Of particular note: Cleveland Plain Dealer on the Consumer Reports, headlines that CAM therapies are becoming “real competition for prescriptions”
  
• The publication led by Penny George Institute on health professionals’ use of CAM was covered in literally scores of media including these samples from Akron, Ohio to HealthDoctrine to Crouse Hospital News in Syracuse to US News & World Report to News Medical Net to MassageMag.com to …

• Forbes provided an outlet to for anti-CAM blogger Stephen Salzberg University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine’s Cheryl Ritenbaugh, PhD’s survey on people’s response to energy medicine. 
• FoxReno pushed alternatives to conventional pain relief.
  
• Valerian study on sleep got positive treatment on Reuters New York.
  
• CNN International pumped a new site to explore massage and spa evidence.
• A women’s blog Empower Her offered a positive look at CAM in alleviating adverse effects of breast cancer treatment.
• CBC news reported an Austrialian study that found high use of CAM in those with arthritis.
  
• A military Management Brief reviews CAM for PTSD.
  
• Medscape reports a survey on use of CAM by adults with headache.

• On MedPage, former JAMA editor George Lundberg, MD rolled out his disdain for therapeutic touch again.
• Some conservative Rabbi’s in Israel argue that some alternative medicine  practices are idolatry.
• Medicine.net ran a feature on CAM for multiple sclerosis.

Organizations & Businesses

• The International Association of Yoga Therapists $30,000 NIH conference grant was picked up by MSN and elsewhere.
• Integrative care for animals received a plugs from the Veterinary Institute for Integrative Medicine.
• Lebanese stakeholders called for more regulation of complementary and alternative medicine.
• A business that sounds like a not-for-profit called the Institute for Integrative Medicine posted 8 You-Tube videos.
  
• Alternative Medicine LLC bought this PR Newswire spot to announce its new information website.

• The University of British Columbia is offering an integrative oncology MSc program.
  
• Michael Cohen’s CAMLawBlog cites the Integrator Blog in this piece on Accountable Care Organizations including complementary medicine.

Antagonists (a.k.a. elf-described quack busters)

• Edzard Ernst sticks his head into detox programs and blasts them in the Guardian. 
• Dangers from dietary supplements are featured at Lifegoesstrong.com
• The ScienceBlog folks were busy and their posts show up regularly, including this blast back at Jefferson’s IM pediatrician DiNicola’s myths.

Lesson #1 (Historic): In 1996 I was first approached to write a monthly newsletter on developments in integrating (then) complementary and alternative medicine with mainstream healthcare. The publishers, at then St. Anthony’s Publishing, asked: Is there enough activity in complementary and alternative medicine to fill a newsletter? I assured them there was. I wasn’t sure. The process of what I then called “CAM-grafting” had only just begun.

Lesson #2 (Utility): I reported to Sabin my astonishment at the flood. He laughed, via email, that he’d limited his utility to me as an adviser to the Integrator.
He’d shared his secret. Now the secret is out to all of you who didn’t know how to use the Alerts already. The Integrator is similarly compromised. 

Lesson #3 (Service): It occurs that it might be useful for the Integrator to publish a perhaps better organized quick scan like this monthly. Thoughts?

Lesson #4 (Mission): Integrator adviser Pamela Snider, ND and I recently worked on a joint presentation for the annual meeting of the Naturopathic Medical Student Association. The subject was naturopathic philosophy, Snider’s specialty, and its relationship to integrative medicine. Snider urged that our core message be:

“The question is not whether we will be integrated. The question is what we will be when we are. What will we bring to the table?”

My principal reflection after this month of Google Alerts is aligned. The highest and best use for the Integrator may be to land, as frequently as possible, less on what is going on than on what it is that the integration of complementary, alternative and integrative modalities, disciplines and systems is bringing to US healthcare. Are we effecting the kind of change people need? What does one bring to the table if on wants to turn the tables? Do you have suggestions about how I can point this newsletter to help in this process?