Back from my Mind Body Medicine conference at New Orleans where we were also working with people who survived Katrina and working to rebuild the ’soul’ city.

I need to congratulate Dr. Jim Gordon who founded the Center of Mind Body Medicine. He and his faculty have been working in troubled areas of the world like Gaza, Kosovo and now New Orleans.
We all learned various techniques of self care and self healing so we could teach our patients. It sounds like a great idea as a concept.

My first day back at the HMO (Health ‘Maintenance’ Organizations) ridden practice. Mind and Body was confused by suboptimal time available with each patient and mentioning the relaxation breathing further confused my patients causing more questions and longer delays in seeing the next patient. Rough landing to the real world…

Later in the week I wondered about all those great studies supporting these Mind Body techniques, why are those not mentioned in CNN or advertised with Lipitor, Viagra or Lunesta. Why is our healthcare delivery is focused on disease management and ignoring the Health Maintenance?

It is about time the consumers of healthcare industry start investing their time in self-care and take control of prevention of disease and partake in medical decision making. Health 2.0 revolution can work towards consumer empowerment.

To the mind and body….breathe soft belly….

Archana Dubey, MD