With rice paper on the walls, bamboo floors and ambient music, the waiting room at Greenwich Center for Integrative Medicine seems at first more like a day spa than a serious medical facility.
Bernadette Johnson, the director of the integrative medicine program at Greenwich Hospital, founded the center six years ago and in June moved the program into a its own 75,000-square-foot facility on River Road in Cos Cob.
“We combine the best of conventional medicine with what used to be called alternative techniques,” said Johnson. “What we”™re suggesting is that in addition to taking your pills, medicine, and taking part in any kid of surgery you need, don”™t forget that your body has its own innate ability to help itself heal. We want to do the best job in preventing illness from happening again or from starting it to begin with.”
Johnson began her career as a nurse in Greenwich 19 years ago. What is now the Center for Integrative Medicine began in 1988 as the Healthy Living Center, a now separate program. Johnson was working in an outpatient program for patients with chronic illnesses, mostly heart disease, and noticed the patients with a better ability to cope with stress tended to have better outcomes.
Problems commonly dealt with by the center are insomnia, irritable bowel syndrome, headaches, fatigue and a general feeling of not being well. Johnson says often people can”™t put their finger on it, but they all agree they have stress.
Included in the center”™s staff are two conventionally trained fulltime physicians, Dr. Henri J Roca III, medical director, and Dr. Spencer Martin, director of women”™s health, as well as registered nurses, dieticians, massage therapists, acupuncturists, a chiropractor, yoga instructors, children”™s specialist, a gynecologist and a naturopathologist.
Johnson credits much of the holistic style of medicine that is applied at the center to Dr. Herbert Benson, the director emeritus of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine and the Mind-Body Medical Institute associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
“Someone could have a lot on their plate in terms of the stress in their life, though if they learned how to cope well, that”™s what matters; it”™s really about perspective,” said Johnson.
The program teaches patients to first look at lifestyle and nutrition before applying pharmaceuticals. The wellness program teaches methods of yoga, meditation and breathing therapy, all designed to quiet the mind.
“We look at nutrition first before we suggest supplements,” said Johnson. “We talk to patients and tell them to start looking at food as medicine.”
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The center has a corporate program in place that works with businesses to help reduce stress in the work place.
“We work with the business whether it is small or large,” said Johnson. “We teach employees how to apply the relaxation techniques in the work place.”
The program teaches stress-riddled workers to us mini-meditation techniques to deal with the work day.
Stock brokers are typical. Their stress management tool kit might encompass acupuncture, massage and meditation, all geared toward relaxing in the workplace. She tells of Wall Streeters who are having heart attacks at 45.
“It”™s scary that long-term stress takes its toll,” said Johnson. “According to Herbert Benson, 60-90 percent of visits to your practitioner are stress related.”
Johnson describes the program as a win-win for companies and their employees. The program is an initial one-hour “lunch and learn” presentation and half-day workshops customized to each company. It is designed to make the employee feel healthier, more productive, more relaxed and with more energy. The company, in turn, can expect better a working environment, increased individual efficiency, better attendance and reductions in health-related costs.
The center teaches the importance of what Johnson calls “mindfulness.” She says it is about coming back to what”™s important in life, rather than living in the past or the future, but being present in the moment.
According to Johnson, this technique is used by the center”™s medical staff members. The center teaches its employees and those at the Greenwich Hospital campus to impart that behavior has an impact on what is happening in the body.
“Somewhere along the line in medicine, we became so technical,” said Johnson. “Whereas, we used to have doctors go into people”™s homes; they knew the whole family and knew what was going on with the person. Now we”™re so focused on technology that we”™ve gotten away from the spirit and the mind. I”™m not suggesting that the technical care in this country is bad ”“ it”™s excellent. If you needed surgery tomorrow, the beauty is you could have it.”
The center has very little relationship with health care providers, as it does not accept insurance and is cash based. This is primarily because many of the techniques, like massage and acupuncture, it prescribes are not recognized under the majority of insurance programs. Johnson does, however, point to some plans, like Blue Cross and Blue Shield, as having an emerging prevention insurance plan.
Given the absence of insurance payments and the cost of any modern medical treatment, donors have helped by providing for free programs, such as a weekly one-hour meditation program and a Tai Chi program for senior citizens with physical limitations. “Healing touch,” in which the center sponsors training for volunteers interested in helping those in need, is also offered free.
Healing touch involves a Chinese medical technique called Reiki to open energy blockages.
The center recently began a children”™s program, “radiant child,” which teaches relaxation and de-stressing techniques, in hopes that early learning will allow kids to utilize the techniques throughout their lives.
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