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Teaching Holistic Health
by Christina
Chambreau, DVM, CVH
Over a hundred
veterinarians and staff attended my talk on integrative medicine
for the GBVMA this spring. My purpose in giving the talk was to
expose my colleagues to the wide range of healing modalities
successfully in use at veterinary practices around the world and
often requested by clients. Having spoken at dozens of
conventional veterinary conferences around the world over the
last 20 years, I know that many veterinarians welcome an
introduction to gentle ways of healing to add to their
conventional choices. Others are glad to be able to better
respond when clients ask about different healing approaches they
may be using for their own health.
Attendees stood four deep around the table of books on holistic
modalities, ranging from the scientific to purely anecdotal. All
but one of the many questions asked during the entire day,
privately or in the session, were about how to implement
different approaches and where to study them. Several contacted
me after the talk for more guidelines to study or to implement
in their practices. Many thanked me for an interesting talk.
As over 50% of people use holistic approaches for their own
health, we are obligated to explore, research, and decide which
ones have merit for animal health, in our opinion. Every nurse
at a major Baltimore trauma center is now being trained in
Reiki, even though it lacks convincing data on efficacy. Over 60
veterinarians have been in the informal Greater Washington Area
Holistic Veterinary Association. They feel that these approaches
best alleviate animal suffering and involve the client even more
in their animal's health. Over a thousand veterinarians are
members of veterinary acupuncture, homeopathic, chiropractic,
botanical medicine and holistic associations. Many have studied
for hundreds, if not thousands, of hours and used many of these
modalities to improve the health of their patients. Many
veterinary colleges have Holistic Student Chapters). The
Veterinary Technician Program at Essex has been complimented by
the AVMA accreditation committee for their one semester
integrative approaches class.
These approaches are different enough from what we were taught
in school that I would have been disappointed if at least one
person had not questioned them. Dr. Shelley Epstein will be
addressing the research on homeopathy next year at NAVC, VA VMA
and at the Academy of Veterinary Homeopathy's annual conference
which will be in Washington, DC, in Spring 2011. Proceedings
from these will certainly be interesting to anyone wanting to
see the research on one of the modalities.
Again, the purpose of the talk was to show a way to evaluate the
health of our patients in a deeper way that allows for increased
health and longevity and to provide an overview of the wide
variety of potentially healing modalities now readily available.
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