November 12, 2011

An October 27, 2011 article in the New York Times online edition reported that a conference in mindfulness for doctors was recently held at the Chapin Mill Retreat Center in western New York and sponsored by the University of Rochester Medical Center.

According to the article, “There has been a growing awareness among doctors that being mindful, or fully present and attentive to the moment, not only improves the way they engage with patients but also mitigates the stresses of clinical practice.”

Geared toward physicians and health professionals the mindfulness training conference was developed, according to the article, by Michael S. Krasner, M.D., associate professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of Rochester and Dr. Ronald Epstein, a professor of family medicine, psychiatry and oncology at Rochester. The first course session was held on October 19-22 with a second scheduled to occur May 2-5, 2012.

“Mindful communication is one way for practitioners to feel more ‘in the game’ and to find meaning in their practice,” said Dr. Krasner in the New York Times article.

The course comes after a 2009 mindfulness research study, led by Dr. Krasner and co-authored by Dr. Epstein, that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study followed 70 primary care physicians from 2007 to 2008. Participants attended a continuing medical education course in mindfulness requiring class time of 2.5 hours per week with one 7-hour retreat, and then 2.5 hours per month over the next ten months.

The study tracked mindfulness and its effects on physician burnout, empathy, psychosocial orientation, personality and mood. Participants completed surveys at the start, and then again after 2, 12 and 15 months. According to the research, the physicians who showed increases in mindfulness also reported improvements in measures of well-being, and demonstrated a more patient-centered approach to clinical care.

“Mindfulness,” Dr. Epstein said in the New York Times article, “and the self-awareness it cultivates, is a fundamental ingredient of excellent care.”

New York Times Article: Chen, PW (2011). “Teaching Doctors to be Mindful.” New York Times Online Edition. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/teaching-doctors-to-be-mindful/.

Study: Krasner, MS, Epstein, RM, et al. “Association of an Educational Program in Mindful Communication With Burnout, Empathy, and Attitudes Among Primary Care Physicians.” JAMA, 2009;302(12):1284-1293.

Dave Gorczynski is president of SPARK, a non-profit organization that has provided free energy work sessions and workshops across New York City since 2002. He writes a regular column about energy work and meditation for the Compact News in New York City's Chinatown. E-mail him at dave@sparkenergy.org.