UCSF Integrative Medicine Expert to Appear in "The New Medicine"

Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, clinical professor of family and community medicine at UCSF, is among national experts in integrative medicine to be interviewed in a PBS documentary titled "New Medicine," to premiere at 9 p.m. PST on Wednesday, March 29.

The two-hour documentary, hosted by the late Dana Reeve, examines why practitioners and consumers alike have begun to turn to a more holistic form of health care called integrative medicine - seeking to heal the whole person, rather than simply cure a disease, according to the show's website.

To view an excerpt of "The New Medicine," go here and scroll down to the video clip of Remen.

For her part, Remen describes her work reminding patients who are ill to focus on their "wholeness," rather than the disease. She also talks about her work helping doctors, some of whom become hardened or cynical over time, to get in touch with their hearts and souls when treating patients.

A member of the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine www.osher.ucsf.edu at UCSF, Remen is a co-founder and medical director of the award-winning Commonweal Cancer Help Program in Bolinas, California, and the founder and director of the Institute for the Study of Health and Illness at Commonweal, a training program for physicians who wish to renew their commitment to service and to practice with greater compassion and spiritual awareness. Remen was among the physicians to develop the Finding Meaning in Medicine (FMM) practice model, which has now been adapted by other groups of health care professionals, medical educators and medical students. FMM offers a virtual community of like-minded physicians. Remen describes the concept in "Finding Meaning in Medicine: Reclaiming the Soul of Practice," which she co-wrote with Robert M. Rufsvold, MD. The article appeared in the May 2002 issue of San Francisco Medicine, the journal of the San Francisco Medical Society. Download the PDF. In addition, Remen developed The Healers' Art course, which continues to be one of the most popular electives for medical students at UCSF. Students are helped to discover what it means for them to embark on the path to become a healer. This course has been so successful that 44 other medical schools across the country (including Yale, Dartmouth, Harvard, Brown and Stanford) have chosen to introduce it into their curricula. The course is now in its 14th year. Remen is author of the New York Times bestseller "Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal" (Riverhead, 1996) and the national bestseller "My Grandfather's Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge and Belonging" (Riverhead, 2000). Remen has a long history of chronic illness, including having undergone eight major surgeries. Her work represents a unique blend of the perspectives of physician and patient. To read more about Remen, go here. Source: Lisa Cisneros