This year’s UCSF Integrative Medicine Forum, entitled “Rx CAM: Integrating Complementary and Alternative Medicines into Healthcare Practice” will be held on Saturday, June 1 from 8:30 am – 5:30 pm in Cole Hall, 513 Parnassus Avenue in San Francisco.

Dr. Dean Ornish and Dr. Elson Haas are the keynote speakers, and presenters from the Osher Center include:

• Rick McKinney, MD, speaking on Integrative Medicine for the Underserved;
• Joseph Acquah, LAc, OMD, speaking on Traditional Chinese Medicine;
• Marcia Degelman, CMT, speaking on The Healing Art of Massage Therapy.

Everyone, including students, faculty, family, and the general public are encouraged to attend! Fees: $15 for UCSF students, $20 for UCSF associates, and $25 for the general public. A light breakfast and lunch are included. The Forum offers 8 Nursing Continuing Education Units. UCSF students may attend the forum and receive 1.0 elective credit. Details and online registration.

We have recently been receiving a fair amount of press! Feel free to check these four out:

• Osher Center Director Margaret Chesney, PhD interviewed on the topic of Integrative Medicine by Christopher Springmann on Radio MD.
• Our neurodevelopmental pediatrician Sanford Newmark, MD, interviewed on the Huffington Post Live about nearly one in five high school age boys in the United States having a diagnosis of ADHD.
• Dr. Sanford Newmark again interviewed on Fox News Radio about the new ADHD statistics.
• Researcher Deborah Barnes, PhD‘s groundbreaking work on an integrative approach to dementia, on Medscape Today.

Starting next week, Osher Center will offer free “Laughter Infusion” classes for cancer patients. Classes will be held on Mondays from 3:00 – 5:00 pm and Wednesdays from 12:00 – 2:00 pm. Sessions begin every 20 minutes, and there is no need to pre-register ~ just stop by! Research has shown that laughter can enhance our immune system, assist with pain management, and boost our mood. Laughter really is the best medicine!

The classes will be held at the Ida & Joseph Friend Cancer Resource Center on the main floor of the Mt. Zion Hospital at 1600 Divisadero Street in San Francisco.

These classes are a collaboration between the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine and the Cancer Resource Center, and supported by the Mount Zion Health Fund. Classes will be taught by our certified Nurse Laughter Leaders, Teresa Corrigan, RN, MA, BCB, CLYT  and Renee Rivera, RN, DAS, RYT, CLYL.

If you have questions, please call 415-353-7718 or e-mail classes@ocim.ucsf.edu or e-mail Teresa Corrigan directly at corrigant@ocim.ucsf.edu.

Several Osher Center clinicians and researchers will be presenting workshops at the “Foundations of Integrative Medicine” half-day event at UCSF’s Mission Bay campus on Friday, April 26, from 8:00 am until 1:00 pm.  In this half-day session, we will explore the research behind the science of integrative medicine, and offer opportunities to learn about disease prevention, stress reduction, mindfulness, resilience, flexibility and wellness. Osher Center Director Margaret Chesney, PhD, is the course chair.

The fee of $85 includes a half-day of education, continental breakfast, lunch, and a UCSF Fitness Center day pass. A portion of this program has been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™

Details and online registration.

Our neurodevelopmental pediatrician, Dr. Sanford Newmark, as well as Kaitlin Fox, the mother of one of his patients, Dasha, were interviewed on Patient Power, on the topic of Treating Autism with Integrative Medicine.

“What is the latest understanding using integrative medicine to treat autism? Dr. Sanford Newmark, pediatrician and Director of the Pediatric Integrative Neurodevelopment Program at UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, explains the merits of this approach. Dr. Newmark details how harnessing the best of both conventional and alternative medicine can offer effective means and new answers to support autism patients. Kaitlin Fox, mother of an autistic child, shares details of her discovery of integrative medicine and the positive results.” Read more or listen to the interview.

Upcoming Presentations by Dr. Newmark:

Do 2.7 Million Children Really Need Ritalin?
Parents Education Network Speaker Series
Friday, March 1, 9:00 am – 11:00 am
Delancey Street Screening Room, 600 Embarcadero St., San Francisco
$20 for Parents Education Network members ($35 annual membership required)

Integrative Approaches to Autism and ADHD Treatment
Autism and Special Needs Resource Fair
Saturday, March 23, 9:00 am – 2:00 pm (Dr. Newmark at 10:00 am)
Dominican University of California, San Rafael
For more information, contact Karen Kaplan
$20 per workshop / exhibits free

Does My Child Really Need to Be Medicated? An Integrative Approach to ADHD
Families of Children with Disabilities Conference
Saturday, March 23, 8:30 am – 3:30 pm (Dr. Newmark at 2:00 pm)
John O’Connell High School, 2355 Folsom Street, San Francisco
Free

Greater Good Science Center will be holding a daylong “Practicing Mindfulness & Compassion” conference on Friday, March 8 at the Craneway Pavilion Conference Center in Richmond. This conference and webcast, featuring a keynote by Jon Kabat-Zinn, will illuminate the connections between mindfulness and compassion, focusing on how mindfulness can deepen relationships, enhance caregiving, and build compassion.

Our Nancy Bardacke, RN, CNM, MA, will be one of the participants in the afternoon panel discussion, “Stories from the Field,” billed as “a panel of program leaders who have fostered mindfulness and compassion in schools, workplaces, health care, and beyond.” The panel will be moderated by Barry Boyce, Mindful Editor-in-Chief. For more information or to register, visit Greater Good’s website.

Nancy will also be speaking at the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care and Society’s annual conference in Norwood, Massachusetts on April 17-21, as well as the Dalai Lama Center’s “How Mindfulness Helps Children Thrive” conference in Vancouver on May 9-11.

And Nancy’s new Mindful Birthing CD is now available, as well as her Mindful Birthing book. Congratulations, Nancy, on this important work!

Osher Center neurodevelopmental pediatrician Dr. Sanford Newmark will be giving a presentation on his approach to treating ADHD at the Learning Disabilities Association of America’s 50th Annual International Conference, in San Antonio, Texas from February 13 – 16. LDA’s international membership of over 15,000 includes members from 27 countries around the world. The membership, composed of individuals with learning disabilities, family members and concerned professionals, advocates for the almost three million students of school age with learning disabilities and for adults affected with learning disabilities. For more information or to register for the conference, please visit the LDA’s website.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the
screening and the panel discussion that followed!

Please join us for a free screening of the award-winning documentary “Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare” on Wednesday, January 23 from 6:30-8:30 pm at UCSF Cole Hall, in the Medical Sciences Building at 513 Parnassus Avenue (map and parking and Muni info).

“Escape Fire” takes a hard look at the myriad problems in today’s healthcare system in the United States and offers hopeful solutions, including integrative medicine. Interviewees include three UCSF faculty members: Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, Dr. Peter Carroll and Dr. Dean Ornish, in addition to integrative medicine advocate, Dr. Andrew Weil. One storyline follows Sgt. Robert Yates from his Medevac flight from the battlefield through his recovery from injury and dozens of medications, with the help of such integrative medicine interventions as acupuncture and meditation.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with the researchers involved in our ReBoot research study, a collaboration with the San Francisco VA, which will provide mind-body treatment for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with PTSD. The panelists will be co-PIs Margaret Chesney, PhD of the Osher Center and Tom Neylan, MD of the SFVAMC, as well as Gerard Choucroun, MSW, of NCIRE, and will be  moderated by KQED reporter Amy Standen.

Although this is a free event, donations will be accepted for Osher Center’s Reboot study. You may also make an online donation.

Nancy Bardacke‘s groundbreaking book, Mindful Birthing: Training the Mind, Body, and Heart for Childbirth and Beyond will be translated into  French, German, Dutch and Turkish. The English version is traveling the world as well, with sales in Hong Kong, New Zealand and Tehran!

Nancy is the founder and instructor of our Mindfulness-Based Childbirth and Parenting classes, as well as The Mind in Labor. The 2013 schedule for both of these classes are now posted, and they typically fill up well in advance.