This Saturday I attended a lecture at the Wellness House in Hinsdale. The speaker was David Spiegel, M.D. of Stanford University. Dr. Spiegel is professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the medical director of the Stanford Center for Integrative Medicine. His 1989 paper,"Effect of Psychosocial Treatment of Patients with Metastatic Breast Cancer" paved the way for research in this field. You can find more on Dr. Spiegel, his research and Stanford's Center on Stress and Health here.
In his opening to the lecture, Dr. Spiegel stated that his aim is to reconnect health and wellness with medical care, and clarified that he is interested in integrative medicine, not alternative. This is certainly a theme we will be coming back to again and again. He gave some compelling reasons for physicians to be knowledge about integrative medicine. 50% of Americans use some form of IM, there are more visits to alternative providers than M.D.s and more is spent out-of-pocket each year.Focusing on cancer treatment, Spiegel emphasized that cancer has become a chronic illness for many patients. According to a 2007 Institute of Medicine report, there were an estimated 12 million cancer survivors in the U.S. This demands that we consider quality of life for cancer patients to an even greater degree, and continue to study the lifestyle factors that increase quality of life and survivorship.
We humans are very social beings. Just look at how many students flock to the atrium after a test, looking to one another for commiseration and hope. If it weren't for the strong bond that forms between an infant and his mother, we never would have survived. A cancer patient goes through many social changes - no relationship stays the same. Group therapy sessions help patients to see that other people are going through the same things, and that it isn't their fault when friends begin to fade away. Another major benefit of group therapy is that the patients are forced to look death in the face. When a member of the group dies, they must all think about their own impending death. This allows them to think about how they might shape their death as much as possible and to prioritize what they want to accomplish before that time comes. Dr. Spiegel tied up the talk by citing a series of articles that give evidence that living better helps you live longer. Some of the articles he referenced throughout the lecture are listed below.
Personally, I find this kind of treatment for cancer patients to be incredibly interesting because it deals with issues that we must all face as human beings, but to the power of 10. We all experience stressful periods, changing relationships and uncertainty about the future, but people with cancer are not able to push these things off to the side or confine them to one small aspect of their lives that doesn't influence everyday activities.
This lecture also showed a side of integrative medicine that is very important: the mind-body connection. Many people intuit that they are more likely to catch a cold when they are worrying about something and/or not sleeping well. We know that they are good biological reasons for this, like cortisol levels and immune activity. How else does the mind influence our body's ability to heal or maintain wellness? How can we tap into this to help our patients, and ourselves?
- Lisa Moore
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The powerpoint from a similar lecture by Dr. Spiegel can be found here.
