Mw. Dr. V. Maizes MD, executive director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, associate Professor of Medicine, Family and Community Medicine and Public Health - University of Arizona.

Integrative Medicine is defined as healing orientated medicine that takes account of the whole person (body, mind, and spirit), including all aspects of lifestyle. It emphasizes the therapeutic relationship and makes use of all appropriate therapies, both conventional and alternative. General practitioners are ideally suited to recognize and reflect the fullness of patients’ experiences thereby helping patients gain clarity and personal insight. Together with our patients we can explore strategies to enhance and barriers that obstruct healing.
The principles of IM include:

• Patient and practitioner are partners in the healing process
• All factors that influence health, wellness, and disease are taken into consideration
• Appropriate use of both conventional and alternative methods facilitates the body’s innate healing response.
• Effective interventions that are natural and less invasive should be used whenever possible.
• Integrative medicine neither rejects conventional medicine nor accepts alternative therapies uncritically.
• Good medicine is based in good science. It is inquiry driven and open to new paradigms.
• Alongside treatment, health promotion and prevention are paramount.
• Practitioners of integrative medicine should exemplify its principles.

In her presentation, Dr Maizes will explore the lived applications of these principles in clinical practice. She will discuss how to take a broader history, new ways to present data, and new decision tools to more fully involve patients in decision making.
Lifestyle strategies to promote good health and alleviate illness, and the growing evidence to support these practices will be discussed. Working with patients to enhance their motivation to make lifestyle changes will be reviewed. The perspective that we hold about our patients’ illness and the potential opportunities that arise to grow from adversity influences our patients greatly. Therefore, our own reflective process and commitment to deepen into our role as healers is critical to the practice of integrative medicine.