On Human Flourishing

In this episode of On Human Flourishing, Joseph Bobrow, Roshi, Ph.D. talks to host, Wayne B. Jonas, MD to discuss creating healing spaces for service members and veterans. A clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst Joseph was Chief of Psychology and Director of Training of the Department of Psychiatry at Kaiser Hospital and Medical Center in South San Francisco. He is also a Zen Master and served on the Board of Directors of the Interfaith Center at the Presidio of San Francisco, located at the Main Post Chapel. Joseph teaches and writes on the interplay of Western psychology, Buddhism, and the beloved community in transforming human suffering, including war-related trauma. Dr. Bobrow’s latest book “Waking Up From War,” is the story behind his non-profit organization, the Coming Home Project. The research was featured by the DCoE in its review of reintegration programs and was the only program with a research evidence base. Bio Credit: Coming Home Project  On Human Flourishing is the official bi-weekly podcast of Samueli Institute, hosted by Wayne B. Jonas, MD. Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes.

Having a healthy community relies on so much more than the healthcare industry according to former Senator Tom Harkin. The ideal system is one in which entities that control commerce, education, transportation and defense all work together to promote wellness and prevent illness. “Health is not just in the hospital and doctors offices; it’s in your workplace, school, family, community and even in your church.” -Harkin As a man from a small farm in Iowa, Harkin grew up understanding that nutrition and exercise play a role in a person’s wellbeing. Serving in Congress from 1975 to 1985, then in the Senate, Harkin supported the notion that Americans had a greater chance at flourishing in a country with a better healthcare system and set out to help build that country. Preventative Care As one of the delegators of the Affordable Care Act, Harkin looked at the American health system as a complex institution that needed improvement. This is due, in part, to what Harkin calls “short-sightedness,” or a misconception that health care is about treating patients rather than preventing illness in the first place. “We’re talking about keeping people healthy, keeping them well, in the first place.” –Sen. Harkin When trying to put his vision into action, Congress members who, despite the evidence, could not see the benefits to funding preventative healthcare often stonewalled Harkin. In addition, lobbyists who represented pharmaceuticals companies, hospitals, and even medical schools halted his plans. Our host Wayne B. Jonas, MD with guest former Sen. Tom Harkin Policy and Progress Realizing that players in the healthcare industry had “their own agendas,” Sen. Harkin took his own agenda one step further by forming the National Prevention Council. This council is comprised of about 16 organizations from various industries that recognize that preventative healthcare will benefit the entire country. The National Prevention Council monitors the Prevention Fund, and therefore has the power to influence that future of healthcare. Senator Harkin counts on this power, as he believes that the key to human flourishing is self-care and self-management that starts in the home and is also practiced in schools and in the community. On Human Flourishing is the official bi-weekly podcast of Samueli Institute, hosted by Wayne B. Jonas, MD. Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes.  

For a long time, scientists considered genetics to be the predisposition of a person’s health. In other words, whatever genes a person was born with, determined if that person would develop a hereditary disease, addiction or obesity. New scientific studies have shown that genes are not determinant of a person’s wellbeing. The lifestyle choices a person makes including exercise and eating habits can deactivate the genes that originally would have lead to disease. Genetics Do Not Define Health “You thought DNA was your destiny,” said Pamela Peeke, MD, MPH, FACP, FACSM. The science shows that lowering stress hormone levels through exercise and Cortisol levels through therapies like yoga, are the keys to tapping into your good genes. This comes first; everything else is epigenetics, according to Peeke. The term Epigenetics refers to any process that alters the activity of a gene, without altering the DNA sequence to which that gene belongs.   “We found out that the mass majority of these genes actually have what I kind of call a dimmer switch. We can activate or deactivate the gene based upon our environment.” –Dr. Peeke Changing Your Destiny Referencing the genome project conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr. Peeke asserts that you can alter your destiny by accessing the methyl donors, which dampen genes. The methyl donors are accessed through repeated practices that work against bad genes. Failure to practice proper nutrition and exercise routines can apparently have the reverse effect: “Genetics may load the gun, but epigenetics pulls the trigger.” –Dr Peeke Because epigenetics can go two ways, Dr. Peeke tells the audience of On Human Flourishing to “assume the vertical,” when it comes to physical activity. And for complete wellness, people can use their minds to set the tone for their overall wellbeing. In closing, Dr. Peeke asks, “When’s the last time you checked in with yourself?” (i) Epigentics: The Science of Change, Bob Weinhold. Environmental Health Perspectives 2006 Mar; 114 (3): A160-A167

Simply understanding how the am/fm radio works; that was the assignment for Henry Samueli’s 7th-grade electric shop class, the point in his life that turned out to be the beginning of it all. In the latest episode of On Human Flourishing, Samueli sits with Wayne B. Jonas, MD, to discuss the long path of life, which later led him to dive into the world of integrative medicine. Samueli’s journey in integrative health began on the home front, as he watched his wife, Susan, nurse their children to health using homeopathy, Chinese herbs, and nutrition. He admits that he found it mystical at first, but later, after watching his children flourish, he came to appreciate it. “I’m a complete believer that these alternative therapies have a lot of efficacy.” –Henry  Samueli, PhD   Samueli’s successes in engineering allowed him to act philanthropically, investing in science education for young people. Much of his philanthropic work was executed through the Samueli Foundation, a charity organization started by his wife, Susan Samueli, PhD. The Samueli Foundation endeavors to create value within society by endowing innovation, entrepreneurial and sustainable ideas. Mr. and Mrs. Samueli later began investing in organizations and projects having to do with complementary and alternative medicine, the only thing missing according to Henry Samueli, was the science that supported this form of medical care. “That became another area of interest for us; to try to develop some scientific evidence behind it.” -Henry Samueli To unveil the science behind the esoteric world of integrative medicine, Henry and Susan Samueli first started a research center at University of California, Irvine. Later, the Samueli’s partnered with Dr. Jonas to start the Samueli Institute for Information Biology, now called Samueli Institute. Jonas believes that Samueli has “a passionate drive to enhance human flourishing,” and there is much more in the future for the Samueli Foundation in the area of integrative health. Henry Samueli’s “primary motivation,” in starting Samueli Institute and pursuing his other philanthropic projects was to understand how integrative medicine works, just like the radio from his electric shop class. Today, he continues to transcend mere curiosity, by helping Samueli Institute in exploring the science of healing to create a flourishing society. Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes to get automatic downloads of On Human Flourishing to your devices. Subscribe here.

James Gordon, MD, started the Center for Mind Body Medicine (CMBM) based on his interest in creating what he calls “a community of healers.” He wanted to bring together the doctors who practiced medicine in a different way than the drug-based practices for which they were trained. These doctors were helping patients heal themselves with mind-body therapies. In his interview with Samueli Institute’s President and CEO Wayne B. Jonas, MD, Dr. Gordon explains his vision for building his healing community: “To make self-awareness, self-care, and group support central to all healthcare-the training of health professionals and the education of our children.”  Mind Body Medicine vs. Conventional Medicine The recognizable difference between healing through mind-body medicine and with conventional practices is the use of modern technologies and artificial remedies as opposed to plant-based medications and mind-body therapies. Not all doctors are healers, according to Gordon’s testimony of what lead him to his current role. In fact, healers are not limited to those who actually studied medicine, and self-care can sometimes be more effective in treating patients than practitioner evoked treatment. What sets mind-body medicine apart from other practices, according to James Gordon, is establishing a name for it that speaks directly to its function within society. Mind-body medicine is meant to treat using traditional forms of healing; these are healing forms, which he considers “indigenous,” and efficient. “By calling it mind-body medicine, we are saying that we are in line with the deepest understanding of how human beings function. And we’re also committed to those approaches and those techniques that make it possible for each person to experience that connection and have a positive effect on it.” In the conventional world, practitioners, academics and others have compared mind-body medicine to standard methods and decided that it seemed, “soft,” but Dr. Gordon finds that the reputation of mind-body medicine doesn’t quite match the evidence from mind-body research or the patient results.  The Challenge of Mind Body Medicine In response to the way much of the Western world views mind-body medicine, Dr. Gordon has a wake- up call. According to the Dr. Gordon, “soft” is a poor word to describe mind-body medicine becomes “soft” does not mean effective. Instead he says it’s not the mechanisms for healing that are present in mind-body therapies but the people criticizing the treatments who need to change.  “No matter how much research you and I and others produce, people look at them as soft. And it’s their minds that need to change.”   Samueli Institute recently launched a new website brainmindhealing.org to materialize the evidence behind integrative medicine, encourage the implementation of mind-body practices in standard care and discuss how mind-body medicine can positively impact the future of our healthcare system. Be sure to visit the site.   

Dr. Bonakdar recently visited Samueli Institute to discuss his journey in integrating the practices of integrative medicine. He currently holds the title, Director of the American Academy of Pain Management in addition to working as a Director of Pain Management at the Scripps Center for Pain Management in California. When asked how he got started, Dr. Bonakdar explained that what Americans call alternative medicine, is not as foreign to him. Born in Iran, Dr. Bonakdar learned of integrative medical practices like mind-body therapy and Tai Chi at a young age. In his homeland, these practices are primal and others like prescription medication are secondary and sometimes forbidden. His vision for pain management practice is to help make so-called alternative medicine, more prominent in the United States. “We need a huge transformation. We need more individualized pain care, not just specifically what the guidelines say; and a lot more self-care.” His current approach involves offering alternative pain management treatment as a first choice or after patients have exhausted all other forms of treatment, including medication. In his practice, he often finds that many patients are not healing from conventional practices because the root of their problem is not what it appears. Sometimes chronic pain comes from injuries and strain, but other times, it comes from stress. Dr. Bonakdar strives to look at the whole picture to heal his patients. “How can condition ‘X’ fit the entire picture and how can you then approach this complex picture in a way that’s patient’s centered.” Acknowledging that there has been considerable evidence that integrative medicine heals patients, Dr. Bonakdar is looking for ways to make some integrative treatments standard in healing patients with chronic pain.

George Isham, MD, Chief Health Officer of HealthPartners, a nonprofit health provider that covers more than 1.5 million lives in Minnesota and Wisconsin, joins Samueli Institute President and CEO Wayne Jonas, MD, this week for a podcast interview on the future of healthcare. Clinical Care Accounts for Only 20% of Health In a 20 minute interview, Isham and Jonas discuss the groundbreaking work of Dr. David Kindig, who argued that clinical care is responsible for as little as 20 percent of overall health. The vast majority of factors influencing health, he said, come from social determinants, such as socioeconomic factors, the environment, and the health behaviors of individuals. It is through this lens of the importance of what happens outside the doctor’s office that Jonas and Isham consider the future of care and wrestle with real world questions of promoting health within a system that reimburses prescriptions, procedures and clinical treatments. “If you change the way that people are paid such that you reward the outcomes, then doctors are free to figure out based upon good science what works and what they should begin to do,” explained Isham. “This will increase satisfaction not just in patients, but in clinicians as well. People are highly motivated when you have a mission that is larger than self. That’s why doctors went to medical school and why nurses trained to be nurses.”

At Thanksgiving millions of Americans focus on gratitude, home and hearth while thousands of veterans are without shelter. While the societal factors that contribute to homelessness are complex, organizations across the country are successfully reducing homelessness among veterans to functional zero. This week Samueli Institute’s twice monthly podcast features a discussion with the Reverend Linda Kaufman of Community Solutions on how major American cities are essentially ending veteran homelessness forever. “Houston has declared zero veteran homelessness. Salt Lake City is just about there. Phoenix is very close and New Orleans at the end of last year got to functional zero,” explained Kaufman. “The communities that have reached functional zero are able to maintain homelessness that is rare, brief and non-recurring.” In her interview with Samueli Institute CEO Dr. Wayne Jonas on his podcast, Kaufman explains how her organization and a network of others around the country have addressed the complicated issues and cut through the Gordian knot of homelessness. “The cure for homelessness is housing,” Kaufman explained. “I know it’s a stunner, but it’s as simple and as complicated as that.” Kaufman explains to Dr. Jonas the transformative work afoot to apply that simple logic by shifting housing policy away from first come, first served toward a rigorous system of triage that gets housing to those in greatest need.

In honor of this week’s Veterans Day observance, Samueli Institute’s twice monthly podcast, On Human Flourishing, features an exclusive interview with teacher, military family advocate and Army spouse Patty Shinseki. Shinseki and Jonas discuss unique challenges facing military families—especially school-age children—and what lessons society as a whole can learn from the resilience of military communities.  Military families and children of service members experience unique stresses related to deployment, long separations, and the challenges of frequent relocation. Shinseki and her husband, General Eric Shinseki, relocated more than 30 times during his military service, shifting often from overseas deployments back to the continental United States. “Our children went to eight or nine school districts and with each one we would learn about the variances in the school systems, the differences in requirements for graduation, and differences in academic standards,” explained Shinseki. “So I have devoted my time and energy to helping the military child’s needs and serving organizations like the Military Child Education Coalition, which works to provide a quality education experience for military children affected by transition.” In her conversation with Dr. Jonas, Shinseki talks about what she has learned as a military spouse and how the strength of military families is at its core rooted in a shared devotion to service. “The beauty of growing up in the military is that young people are surrounded by the core values of service greater than self. I think it rubs off within the family structure,” Shinseki explains. “When children see mom or dad putting on a uniform every day, going to work on time, and working very hard, I think that there is an element of pride of being part of something very special.” Shinseki is also a member of the leadership council for The Franklin Project, an Aspen Institute effort led by General Stanley McCrystal to make one year of full-time national service, whether in military or paid civilian service in an array of areas, including health, poverty, conservation or education, available to all Americans. On this week’s podcast Shinseki and Jonas discuss how a focus on at least a year of service for all Americans could improve the health, wellbeing and resilience for all.

Director of Biological Technology at DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) Geoff Ling, MD, PhD, joins Samueli Institute CEO Wayne Jonas, MD, to discuss technology and healthcare on an episode of the Institute’s podcast, On Human Flourishing, released today. “This is real science-fiction stuff,” remarked Jonas in his introduction to Dr. Ling, and Ling delivered on that promise offering updates on DARPA projects that let patients missing limbs control robotic arms with their thoughts. “It’s a brain-controlled robotic arm like Luke Skywalker in EMPIRE STRIKES BACK or Detective Dell Spooner in iROBOT,” Ling explained. “We also hooked a patient up to a flight simulator, a patient who has never flown before learned to control the aircraft with her mind. She was so good in her one and only training that the next time we let her fly a fighter jet.” While DARPA’s robotics projects set the imagination soaring, Ling also discusses the core mission of producing research that is beneficial to the service member and the patient.

Dr. Kent Bradley, former Chief Medical Officer with Safeway, Inc., joined the corporate grocery chain with a passion for instilling long-term health initiatives for employees. “I think increasingly that people value their health and companies need to align what they’re doing to meet them with what they value,” Bradley explained to Samueli Institute President and CEO Wayne Jonas, MD, in an interview for the Institute’s bi-weekly podcast on the future of healthcare.  In a 30-minute interview with Jonas, Bradley examines the relationships between corporations and health and the initiatives that businesses are creating to promote the long-term health of their employees. “What are the investments that are going in that support the people?” asks Bradley. “It’s everything from ensuring that we provide the resources necessary that makes healthy choices easy for them.”  Click the audio player below for the full episode, or subscribe to the podcast in the iTunes store. 

In the 1970s when Joe Pizzorno, ND, decided to pursue a career in naturopathic medicine his choice of training programs was limited. “There was only one school left in all of North America,” Pizzorno explained to Samueli Institute President and CEO Wayne Jonas, MD, in an interview for the Institute’s bi-weekly podcast on the future of healthcare. “When I enrolled there were a total of seven students in my class.” In the 20 minute interview with Jonas, Dr. Pizzorno recounts his decision to pursue a career in naturopathic medicine and help launch Bastyr University, an accredited university with more than 1,000 students and the first school of naturopathic medicine to receive a grant from the National Institutes of Health. Pizzorno also shares his more recent efforts to use artificial intelligence to develop tools for physicians and consumers to better track the thousands of enzymes, elements, chemicals and toxins that affect our health. “No one can keep all this physiology and biochemistry in their head. That’s where artificial intelligence is such a powerful tool,” explained Pizzorno. “We’re developing decision support tools that can be used by doctors and consumers to more deeply understand the uniqueness of their own biochemistry to optimize health.”

Dr. Scott Shreve, Director of Hospice and Palliative Care at the Department of Veterans Affairs, joins Dr. Jonas for a conversation on the growing need for end-of-life care for veterans. “Roughly a little over 600,000 veterans died this past year, and not all of them are enrolled in the V.A.,” said Dr. Shreve. “Three percent of veterans die in V.A. facilities. So where are 97 percent of our veteran population dying? And that’s one in four Americans, but if you happen to look at just men, it’s probably one in two of all the deaths in America. So we realized, strategically, about four years ago, we needed to partner with the community, and went to the national Hospice Palliative Care organization, and established this program called We Honor Veterans, where you engage community hospices and empower them about veteran issues.” This episode marks the end of season one of On Human Flourishing. We will return with new episodes in September. Thanks for listening.

In a fast-paced society, being overwhelmed and stressed are often accepted as normal parts of life. But in doing so, what should be emotional cues become constraints that can have adverse affects on our health. Bob Duggan, an acupuncturist who co-founded the Traditional Acupuncture Institute in Laurel, Maryland, joins Dr. Jonas for a conversation about healing.  As Bob describes, the evolving field of acupuncture as an alternative treatment became more mainstream as responsibility for personal health empowered patients to become more aware of the connections between mind, body and spirit. The application of integrative medicine can only be effective when the individual is aware. Aware of themselves and what is happening inside the body as it relates to the physical and mental components of being. Bob writes in ‘One Hundred Families Say…’ “upset is optional…my body is wise: my headaches, backaches, wheezing, etc. are often guides to wise living…” 

In 2001, Dr. Aviad Haramati received NIH support to fund a broad educational initiative aimed at incorporating complementary, alternative (CAM) and integrative medicine into the medical curriculum at Georgetown University. The goal of the initiative is not to train practitioners of CAM, but rather to educate skillful, knowledgeable physicians who understand the role of CAM in healthcare and are capable of discussing these issues with their patients. He has been a Visiting Professor at more than 50 medical schools around the world, and currently works with a number of deans and educators in North America, Europe and Israel. Most recently, Dr. Haramati became the Founding Director of the Center for Innovation and Leadership in Education (CENTILE).

Mary Jo Kreitzer is the founder and director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Spirituality & Healing, where she teaches and conducts research on optimal healing environments and mindfulness meditation. In this week’s episode of the podcast, Dr. Kreitzer talks to Dr. Jonas about optimal healing environments and their impact on both patients and practitioners.

Dr. Gail Christopher joins Dr. Wayne Jonas to discuss disparities in health care access. Dr. Christopher is vice president for policy and senior advisor at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan. In this role, she serves on the president’s cabinet that provides overall direction and leadership for the foundation and has expertise in the areas of health policy as it relates to social determinants of health, health inequities and public policy issues.

Our guest today is Sonia Rhodes, a national leader in designing customer and employee experiences in the challenging arena of health care. Sonia is the Chief Executive and Experience Officer at Sonia Rhodes Experience Design and prior to launching her consultancy, she led the charge to transform the healthcare experience for patients and caregivers at the largest integrated healthcare center in California at Sharp HealthCare. Sonia is also co-author of a definitive text on the patient experience and a member of the board of directors at Samueli Institute.

“10,000 people turn 65 every day in this country, so the graying of America is happening right before our eyes.” Bill Novelli, former CEO of AARP, offers this sobering statistic during his conversation with Dr. Wayne Jonas. Now a professor of business at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University, Novelli has a very unique perspective of aging and the concept of long-term well-being.