11/19/01

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Pope marries

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Bin Laden wins Nobel Peace Prize

Cleveland Clinic embraces alternative medicine

The pope is still single, and Osama isn't winning any awards. But the Clinic, a monument to mainstream Western medicine and high-tech procedures, really is setting up a Center for Alternative Medicine.

The Clinic is beginning to introduce its doctors to established nontraditional treatments such as meditation, dance therapy and tai chi. Down the road, if a government grant comes through, the Clinic hopes to study energy healing, a spiritual theory that a "life force" within us affects our physical well-being.

"This is not bizarre anymore," said Joan Fox, the new center's director.

Fox, a researcher in the Clinic's cardiology department, points to a recent survey showing that two-thirds of Americans have tried alternative therapies, from acupuncture to herbal remedies to music therapy. She wants to help doctors understand the benefits and potential dangers so that they are comfortable discussing them with patients.

She held her first workshop last month, introducing about 20 cardiologists to nontraditional treatments.

"This was a major educational initiative for all of us," said Dr. Eric Topol, head of cardiovascular medicine, who took part. Doctors sampled yoga, got five-minute massages, did a "mindfulness" exercise to reduce stress and experienced energy healing.

"It was a very relaxing, kind of introspective day, the likes of which I can't remember," Topol said.

Fox said that first group was "scientifically skeptical, but they were open to learning."

The National Institutes of Health won over some skeptics three years ago when it made research into complementary and alternative medicine a priority.

Academic medical centers quickly followed NIH's lead. Harvard, Stanford, Minnesota, Duke and about 20 others have started alternative or complementary medicine programs.

Duke's 15-month-old Center for Integrative Medicine includes an outpatient clinic, something that the early planning for the Clinic's center does not.

"The environment has been pretty accepting," said Dr. Martin Sullivan, a cardiologist who is director of science and healing at the Duke center.

But one thing the doctors at Duke could not accept was the very term "alternative medicine." Sullivan finds it outmoded and inaccurate.

"As soon as you're 'alternative,' then you're not 'regular,' " he said. Duke chose to use the term "integrative medicine," which Sullivan said means drawing upon the best of scientifically proven treatments from many different medical traditions, including standard medicine.

Few doctors in Cleveland now take an integrative approach to medicine - perhaps 10, guesses Dr. James Frackelton, who is one of them. A family physician for 47 years, he practices with the Preventive Medicine Group in Westlake.

He sees patients all the time who want second opinions after hearing from Clinic doctors that they need surgery or other invasive procedures. "When you find techniques that work extremely well and work better than what standard medicine has, you run with them," Frackelton said.

The Clinic already offers some nontraditional therapies, such as acupuncture for pain management. Cancer patients can try aromatherapy, guided imagery and other relaxation therapies. And earlier this year, two heart surgeons began making post-operative massages available to their patients.

Ann Anglewicz, an independent massage therapist who visits the Clinic twice a week, said that after being poked, prodded and cut open, heart patients get a sense of healing from her gentle touch. "One of the biggest things I've heard people say is, 'Thank you for making me feel whole again, making me feel like a person again,' " she said. "It helps release some of the pain that's going on."

At Fox's recent workshop for doctors, Anglewicz lobbied the cardiologists about massage therapy's benefits, then offered demonstrations.

"I just talked from the heart," she said, "and I think they got it."

Still, many of the doctors had been unaware of the massage program. Fox wants to plug those information gaps. Her mission at the Center for Alternative Medicine is to help Clinic doctors learn about the value of proven therapies while researching the potential of others.

Even though a high-tech cure is not always possible, Fox said, healing is. Doctors must understand the difference if they hope to connect with patients who can turn elsewhere to get the kind of care they crave.

"It's like a health-care revolution," she said, "where the public is demanding a more patient-centered relationship."

Contact Roger Mezger at:

rmezger@plaind.com, 216-999-4446