On the Front Lines
with John Weeks
Who is John Weeks?
John Weeks is a writer, speaker, chronicler and organizer whose work in the movement for integrative health and medicine began in 1983. He is publisher-editor of The Integrator Blog News & Reports, which since 1995 – in various prior forms – has created primary connective terrain for the diverse stakeholders and professions in the field. He is a new contributor to Today’s Practitioner and contributes a regular column to Integrative Insights at Integrative Practitioner, a column for Integrative Medicine: A Clinician’s Journal, and regular blogs for the Altarum Institute, the Huffington Post and elsewhere. In May 2016, he accepted an invitation to serve as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. Since mid-2015, John has re-focused his work on presenting, teaching and mentoring.
Lori Knutson, Civilian Medicine’s Top Integrative System Builder, Joins Former VA Leader Gaudet at Alice Walton’s Whole Health Institute: An Update
The surprising news last August that Tracy Gaudet, MD was leaving the Veterans Administration where she birthed the transformational Whole Health program was leavened on learning that Gaudet would partner with the world’s wealthiest woman, Alice Walton. Together they would form the Whole Health Institute with a goal of nothing less than to translate and build off the VA model in civilian health and medicine and spread it globally. Other than a brief announcement at kick-off, plans have not been public. Last week word arrived that the professional with the most significant experience in developing integrative strategies in civilian medical
Mapping a Healthcare Frontier: CHI Illuminates Science and Action in $2.8-Billion Energy Medicine Industry
In the minds of many in the dominant school of medicine, all of integrative medicine is frontier science. That bias often holds that the integrative frontier toward which one may sail is a chimera. Yet new continents have been found. Witness findings supporting acupuncture effectiveness and telomere lengthening through meditation. For integrative health, the frontier of that frontier is subtle energy and biofield healing. Spearheading efforts to quantify and advance science and action in this $2.8-billion industry is a self-styled “collaboration accelerator,” the Consciousness and Healing Initiative (CHI). CHI posits that the world they are mapping in their just published
COVID-19: NCCIH Director Helene Langevin on the NIH Integrative Center’s Response
The push for evidence to assist in formulating more effective clinical response to the COVID-19 pandemic is awakening scores of research projects and multipliers more of recommended directions. In the integrative sphere, a team led by Lise Alschuler, ND from the University of Arizona Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine published a paper on “considerations” for natural practices and agents. The Chinese government claims the use of traditional Chinese medicine is in part responsible for its apparently relatively rapid turn-around there. TCM researcher John Chen, PhD, PharmD, OMD, LAc and others have brought that work to the United States. Ryan
Integrative (Weil), Naturopathic (AANP) and Nutrition (ANA) Organizations Open COVID-19 Resource Sites
Amidst of the waves of information on local, national and global developments related to COVID-19, efforts stand out of a few organizations to capture and bundle content that targets the integrative practice communities. Among the entities that have established resources pages are the University of Arizona Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine, the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, and the American Nutrition Association. In contradistinction to the advisories of the United States’ federal agencies and state governments, these organizations have in common that their leaders believe that there is more that an individual can do than “healthy waiting” (sleep, exercise,
Yes, Friends, the Medical Industry Can Be Transformed: The VA’s Whole Health System of Care at 2 Years
That there should be a huge transformational drama underway in the US medical industry is a desire and dream that powers the integrative health movement and the work of many others. Those who might enjoy a sort of reality TV examination of not the fantasy but the multi-dimensional actuality of what such change looks like have a treat coming. The scene of action is 18 huge medical centers distributed across the entire United States. The script writers are 25 scientists on an evaluation team. The drama cuts across 4 deeply inter-related story lines: the impact of the transformational change on
James Maskell’s “The Community Cure” – A Terrific Contribution re: Loneliness, Group Services, and Fundamental Transformation
Health creation. Transformation. From reactivity to well-being. Empowerment. From system-centered to person-centered. Using the least force. Changing the therapeutic order of the nation. These aspirations warm and power the integrative health movement, dreams on the long march for radical re-direction of a $3.5-trillion industry. Yet how often do change prescriptions meet the radical requirements of the dreams? Acupuncture in Medicare doesn’t do it. Nor non-pharma into chronic pain guidelines. In The Community Cure: Transforming Health Outcomes Together, Evolution of Medicine impresario James Maskell offers a re-framework that seeks to rise to the task. Maskell grounds his “cure” in group services
Integrative Health and Climate Change: Perspectives of Thomas, Katz, Sommers, Kelly, Kane, Purdy and Harvie
What kind of response would come in from the call for perspectives (up to 250 words): “How might rapid uptake of the integrative model influence climate change?” My call was stimulated by a commentary from Harvard’s Peter Wayne, PhD and others in the Osher Collaborative for Integrative Medicine in which they boldly assert that Integrative Medicine Is a Good Prescription for Patients and Planet. I opined that I don’t believe that the environmental movement necessarily views the movement for integrative medicine as a core ally, yet that the field would serve itself to up its environmental profile. The call brought
Can $1-Million to Kick-Start a New RAND Project to Revitalize Research in Chiropractic, Acupuncture and Naturopathic Colleges?
The beginning of the RAND project proposal captures dimensions of an awful tend: “The future of research in the Complementary and Integrative Health (CIH) institutions is in jeopardy. A number of CIH colleges and universities are losing their research departments due to lack of consistent funding and the understandable inability to subsidize them with tuition costs. The CIH Colleges are in danger of becoming technical teaching institutions and not institutions of learning. Those teaching the students will not be scholars and researchers who are producing new knowledge for their profession. NIH offers several training grants for researchers and these have
Coming of the Light: The 2019 Integrator Top 10 for Policy and Action in Integrative Health and Medicine
The Integrator Blog News & Reports annually marks the winter solstice with a Top 10 for Policy and Action in Integrative Health and Medicine. In the selection of the Top 10, “the accent is on the affirmative” as the jazzman sings. Thus the Coming of the Light from individuals and organizations in the field making positive contributions to shift the medical industry toward a system that focuses on creating health. Less positive things sometimes make the list. Integrator articles are now published at johnweeks-integrator.com/posts with content going back to 2006 at the original Integrator site, Prior Top 10 lists, a
Can the New American Nutrition Association Finally De-Rodney Dangerfield Nutrition in US Medicine?
What reform push to turn the medical industry toward health has been shouted from the white-papered roof tops as long as the call to dramatically increase the role of nutrition in professional education and practice? Food as medicine is both cornerstone and connective stratum across the naturopathic, functional, integrative, lifestyle, and most traditional medicine models for reform. The bugle was sounded again recently. With a reminder that poor nutrition is a leading factor in chronic disease and an assertion that “personalized nutrition has the power to reverse this epidemic,” five nutrition-related organizations announced they have banded together to form the
Lori Knutson, Civilian Medicine’s Top Integrative System Builder, Joins Former VA Leader Gaudet at Alice Walton’s Whole Health Institute: An Update
The surprising news last August that Tracy Gaudet, MD was leaving the Veterans Administration where she birthed the transformational Whole Health program was leavened on learning that Gaudet would partner with the world’s wealthiest woman, Alice Walton. Together they would form the Whole Health Institute with a goal of nothing less than to translate and build off the VA model in civilian health and medicine and spread it globally. Other than a brief announcement at kick-off, plans have not been public. Last week word arrived that the professional with the most significant experience in developing integrative strategies in civilian medical
Mapping a Healthcare Frontier: CHI Illuminates Science and Action in $2.8-Billion Energy Medicine Industry
In the minds of many in the dominant school of medicine, all of integrative medicine is frontier science. That bias often holds that the integrative frontier toward which one may sail is a chimera. Yet new continents have been found. Witness findings supporting acupuncture effectiveness and telomere lengthening through meditation. For integrative health, the frontier of that frontier is subtle energy and biofield healing. Spearheading efforts to quantify and advance science and action in this $2.8-billion industry is a self-styled “collaboration accelerator,” the Consciousness and Healing Initiative (CHI). CHI posits that the world they are mapping in their just published
COVID-19: NCCIH Director Helene Langevin on the NIH Integrative Center’s Response
The push for evidence to assist in formulating more effective clinical response to the COVID-19 pandemic is awakening scores of research projects and multipliers more of recommended directions. In the integrative sphere, a team led by Lise Alschuler, ND from the University of Arizona Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine published a paper on “considerations” for natural practices and agents. The Chinese government claims the use of traditional Chinese medicine is in part responsible for its apparently relatively rapid turn-around there. TCM researcher John Chen, PhD, PharmD, OMD, LAc and others have brought that work to the United States. Ryan
Integrative (Weil), Naturopathic (AANP) and Nutrition (ANA) Organizations Open COVID-19 Resource Sites
Amidst of the waves of information on local, national and global developments related to COVID-19, efforts stand out of a few organizations to capture and bundle content that targets the integrative practice communities. Among the entities that have established resources pages are the University of Arizona Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine, the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, and the American Nutrition Association. In contradistinction to the advisories of the United States’ federal agencies and state governments, these organizations have in common that their leaders believe that there is more that an individual can do than “healthy waiting” (sleep, exercise,
Yes, Friends, the Medical Industry Can Be Transformed: The VA’s Whole Health System of Care at 2 Years
That there should be a huge transformational drama underway in the US medical industry is a desire and dream that powers the integrative health movement and the work of many others. Those who might enjoy a sort of reality TV examination of not the fantasy but the multi-dimensional actuality of what such change looks like have a treat coming. The scene of action is 18 huge medical centers distributed across the entire United States. The script writers are 25 scientists on an evaluation team. The drama cuts across 4 deeply inter-related story lines: the impact of the transformational change on
James Maskell’s “The Community Cure” – A Terrific Contribution re: Loneliness, Group Services, and Fundamental Transformation
Health creation. Transformation. From reactivity to well-being. Empowerment. From system-centered to person-centered. Using the least force. Changing the therapeutic order of the nation. These aspirations warm and power the integrative health movement, dreams on the long march for radical re-direction of a $3.5-trillion industry. Yet how often do change prescriptions meet the radical requirements of the dreams? Acupuncture in Medicare doesn’t do it. Nor non-pharma into chronic pain guidelines. In The Community Cure: Transforming Health Outcomes Together, Evolution of Medicine impresario James Maskell offers a re-framework that seeks to rise to the task. Maskell grounds his “cure” in group services
Integrative Health and Climate Change: Perspectives of Thomas, Katz, Sommers, Kelly, Kane, Purdy and Harvie
What kind of response would come in from the call for perspectives (up to 250 words): “How might rapid uptake of the integrative model influence climate change?” My call was stimulated by a commentary from Harvard’s Peter Wayne, PhD and others in the Osher Collaborative for Integrative Medicine in which they boldly assert that Integrative Medicine Is a Good Prescription for Patients and Planet. I opined that I don’t believe that the environmental movement necessarily views the movement for integrative medicine as a core ally, yet that the field would serve itself to up its environmental profile. The call brought
Can $1-Million to Kick-Start a New RAND Project to Revitalize Research in Chiropractic, Acupuncture and Naturopathic Colleges?
The beginning of the RAND project proposal captures dimensions of an awful tend: “The future of research in the Complementary and Integrative Health (CIH) institutions is in jeopardy. A number of CIH colleges and universities are losing their research departments due to lack of consistent funding and the understandable inability to subsidize them with tuition costs. The CIH Colleges are in danger of becoming technical teaching institutions and not institutions of learning. Those teaching the students will not be scholars and researchers who are producing new knowledge for their profession. NIH offers several training grants for researchers and these have
Coming of the Light: The 2019 Integrator Top 10 for Policy and Action in Integrative Health and Medicine
The Integrator Blog News & Reports annually marks the winter solstice with a Top 10 for Policy and Action in Integrative Health and Medicine. In the selection of the Top 10, “the accent is on the affirmative” as the jazzman sings. Thus the Coming of the Light from individuals and organizations in the field making positive contributions to shift the medical industry toward a system that focuses on creating health. Less positive things sometimes make the list. Integrator articles are now published at johnweeks-integrator.com/posts with content going back to 2006 at the original Integrator site, Prior Top 10 lists, a
Can the New American Nutrition Association Finally De-Rodney Dangerfield Nutrition in US Medicine?
What reform push to turn the medical industry toward health has been shouted from the white-papered roof tops as long as the call to dramatically increase the role of nutrition in professional education and practice? Food as medicine is both cornerstone and connective stratum across the naturopathic, functional, integrative, lifestyle, and most traditional medicine models for reform. The bugle was sounded again recently. With a reminder that poor nutrition is a leading factor in chronic disease and an assertion that “personalized nutrition has the power to reverse this epidemic,” five nutrition-related organizations announced they have banded together to form the
Who is John Weeks?
John Weeks is a writer, speaker, chronicler and organizer whose work in the movement for integrative health and medicine began in 1983. He is publisher-editor of The Integrator Blog News & Reports, which since 1995 – in various prior forms – has created primary connective terrain for the diverse stakeholders and