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EXCERPT:
Last November, I was sitting in the Grand Ballroom of the Grand Hyatt Hotel next to Grand Central Station. Self-consciously, the reiterated adjective defines the space. Six hundred people, in black tie, grouped at little tables, guests of a philanthropic society, The Bravewell Collaborative. Our role in this public event was as witnesses to the honoring of our esteemed executive editor, Larry Dossey, as well as Jim Gordon, MD, Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, Dean Ornish, MD, Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, and Andrew Weil, MD, for the contributions they had each made as pioneers of integrative medicine (IM)—“integrative” being the latest modifier replacing “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM), which itself replaced “holistic.”
The awards were certainly well deserved. The only person missing in my personal constellation of heroes being Gladys McGarey, MD, who introduced me, son of an anesthesiologist and a nurse, to this view of healthcare in 1965. And, as we ate well-prepared healthy food, and people talked in twos and threes, there came a moment when the conversation at my table died, and in that zone of silence within the room’s noise, I looked out across the ballroom and realized a moment of significant transition was taking place. It took me a moment to work it out what it was.
Publication History: Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing
May 2008 (Vol. 4, Issue 3, Pages 168-169)
