When did your interest in alternative modalities emerge, and what triggered it?
After residency I was concerned about the pharmaceutical-based medicine that I was taught to practice, and I wanted to learn and practice more hands-on, non-invasive treatment options.
Can you comment on the research you did at East Carolina University (ECU)?
I was the architect/primary investigator in a year-long study at ECU. We used Dr. Dean Ornish's program for a group of patients with known coronary artery disease. We studied compliance to a lifestyle regimen that included a vegetarian diet, exercise, yoga, and psychological intervention on patients who resided in rural eastern North Carolina.
What do you mean by a solution-driven approach to patient care?
Patients are pro-active. They know that their health care challenges can be solved. And, they are willing to actively participate in the process to achieve wellness.
How does Expect a Miracle integrate Eastern and Western approaches to health care?
Expect a Miracle integrates a wide spectrum of treatment options. It also introduces Appreciative Dialogue, which is a revolutionary paradigm to achieve optimal health.
How do you define optimal health?
They synergism of mind and body, understanding and appreciating what makes you unique, and acknowledging the soul—to become YOU.
How did you come up with the idea for the Appreciative Dialogue process?
As I was sitting at an alternative medicine conference on November 16, 1998, I realized that alternative medicine was really just non-traditional treatment options within the same limiting "problem-oriented" approach found in traditional medicine. It became clear to me that both disciplines needed a more effective ways of responding to the needs of patients.
Exactly what is the Appreciative Dialogue process, and how does it work?
Appreciative Dialogue is a paradigm shift that fundamentally takes the patients through a process to create their own healing program. They actually participate in journal writing, utilizing a pro-active approach. The patients identify an optimal health plan. Patients actually build a team of practitioners, all utilizing the Appreciative Dialogue format. This creates a synergism that achieves a state of health beyond all expectations.
What's the current model of the doctor-patient relationship, and what should it be?
The problem-oriented approach is best utilized in the acute care setting, that is cardiac arrest, respiratory distress, major trauma, drug overdose. For chronic medical problems, Appreciative Dialogue is a new option. Our present system fosters the perspective of entitlement. Patients will do better when they actively participate in the decision-making process. Each of us is responsible for our own healing. (There are obvious exceptions.)
What is the vital energetic force you talk about accessing for inner harmony and balance?
It is a human force, and lots of cultures have various names for it. For example, the Chinese call it qi, and in Ayurveda it is called prana. The power probably manifests in the immune system interconnecting with all aspects of human physiology.
Is there an essentially spiritual component to the process and the book?
Our spirituality is an essential part of healing, a vital part of who we are. By embracing it, we can peer into the window of our soul.
Appreciative Dialogue connotes a partnership between patient and provider. How would you suggest that patients find health care practitioners who will buy into the program?
In reality, this will be a challenge. But once health care providers become familiar with this approach, they will embrace it fully. Appreciative Dialogue fosters optimal health for all participants.
What do you hope to accomplish with the book?
I expect that patients will achieve total wellness. I desire that we all find a new perspective of life that dwells on the goodness that life has to offer, that we all achieve soulful understanding of who we are, and that we create unique individual lives that are fundamentally interconnected with everyone we touch.
So many providers are caught up in the current managed care system. Doesn't your program require more of the physician's time and attention than they can give these days?
Actually, providers will spend about the same amount of time. The questions are completed at home. The visit already has a known agenda—and the physician helps to guide the patient towards his/her next step. The patient then feels confident that the practitioner understood their concerns by reviewing their journal entries.
As a health care practitioner can I get certified as an Appreciative Dialogue provider?
Yes, please contact us directly at the Center for Appreciative Dialogue, 335 El Dorado #6, Monterey, CA 93940
What has Appreciative Dialogue done for you personally?
It has helped me to recapture the enthusiasm for the practice of medicine. I also am on my own journey utilizing the Appreciative Dialogue workbook.
