Whole Medicine Blog

Joy

A year ago I had two grandchildren, Ezra and Liam. Now I have 9!  Three more have been born this year and my eldest son married a wonderful woman with 4 children.  We had all but one in town for Easter holiday and we spent three glorious days together around good...

read more

The Distance Between Us

As some of you know, I spent many years teaching medical students at the School of Medicine in Chapel Hill. There was an interesting phenomenon I observed over and over again. When the students entered School in their first year they had what I’d call patient-centered...

read more

Speak to the Fear

[published in Health and Healing in the Triangle, October 2012 issue on Surgery] I’ve been cut. Couple of times, actually. Mostly I remember Kathleen’s presence. She goes in with me. She holds my hand when I talk with the pre-op nurse and the anesthesiologist and she...

read more

Surrender

Popular wisdom holds that those of us with addictions have a problem with will power. We don’t know how to resist urges so we over-indulge in things that make us feel good. Of course everyone wants to feel good.  And some people can gamble, have sex, eat, drink, and...

read more

Hawk

Several years ago I was introduced to the shamanic journey as a way to access wisdom that is either outside of ourselves or so deep within that we don’t have access to it from our experiences in “ordinary reality”.  A shaman I met several years ago impressed me as...

read more

Sunrise Service

Eat your vegetables. Exercise every day. Say your prayers. Have fun. Be Kind. Don’t eat so much sugar. Remember your friends. Don’t forget to floss. Go to meetings. Oh yes, be grateful. For those of us that have a not-so-nice and-maybe-a-bit-too-big seam of OCD this...

read more

The Roller Coaster

In my last column I mentioned my emerging attraction to the concept of “wellbeing” as a major determinant of overall health.  Having declared myself a student of wellbeing, I’m discovering that its recipe is complex.  As I work with others to help them chart a course...

read more