Transcription of Wellness in the New Year #121
Speaker 1: You are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast. Recorded in the Studio of Maine Magazine at 75 Market Street, Portland, Maine. Download past shows and become a podcast subscriber of Dr. Lisa Belisle on ITunes. See the Dr. Lisa website or Facebook page for details. Here are some highlights from this week’s program.
Robin: Feel a little bit more present. Savor those moments. Don’t worry as much about what the future might bring. I think that’s very helpful and I’d like to do something new. Some kind of new activity or new hobby and I think that’s really helpful for people. There are lot of things that don’t cause a lot of money that can help us learn a new skill and enjoy something.
Tim: There is quite a bit of evidence now that the way we eat can impact us tremendously in how fast we age. That’s really what we are aiming for. For the participants to feel better, not in ten years but within two weeks. That’s what keeps us doing that.
Lynn: I have seen that while working with change, you can’t just take something out. It is really important to put something good in and that goes for what we are eating or even what we are thinking about.
Speaker 1: The Dr. Lisa Radio hour and podcast is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors. Maine Magazine; Marci Booth of Boothmaine, Apothecary By Design, Premier Sports Health, a division of Blackbear Medical, Sea Bags, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of ReMax Heritage; Ted Carter, Inspired Landscapes, and Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial.
Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa radio hour and Podcast, show #121, wellness in the New Year. Airing for the first time on Sunday January 5, 2014. Today’s guests include Dr. Robin Noble, Gynecologist with InterMed, and Dr. Timothy Howe an internist with Parkview Medical Associates and his wife Lynn Howe. A New Year is upon us and we are all thinking about ways we might live better lives. Joining us today are people who help others to do just that.
Maine Magazine 2012 superdoc, Dr. Robin Noble, shares how she counsels women in her practice to achieve balance. Dr. Tim Howe and his wife Lynn describe their lifestyle choices program at Parkview Hospital in Brunswick. They offer insights on plant based eating and importance of spirituality in creating change. We hope you are inspired to find your own wellness in the New Year. Thank you for joining us.
As we head into 2014, we are all starting to think about the changes we might like to make in our lives. Changes challenging sometimes and when we have challenges, often times we talk to the people who take care of us and help take care of our health. One such individual is Dr. Robin Noble who is a gynecologist with InterMed and also was one of Maine Magazines, we will call it Super Docs from last year’s wellness issue. Thanks for coming in and speaking with us today. Why did you decide to come to Maine? You are not originally from here we know.
Robin: I’m not originally from here but I did spend a number of summers when I was a child up in the mountain sort of island area in Southwest Harbor. I think I always loved it and had fond memories for that reason. Then when my husband and I finished our training, he is a physician as well, we really wanted an extra quality of life than Manhattan afforded. I grew up in Manhattan and as much as that pace really excites me, I didn’t really want to try to practice and now we have four small children and try to do that in Manhattan. We looked for a place that was where we could practice great medicine and enjoy the outdoors, be reasonably close to family and that’s really a fit everything on all fronts.
Lisa: Dr. Noble, you have impressive educational credentials, you went to Yale as an undergraduate, medical school at Columbia, residency at Yale-New Haven. You’re board certified by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology and you even did a fellowship in laparoscopic surgery. With all of these qualifications, you could have chosen any hospital or anywhere in the country. How do you find the hospital system here in Maine in InterMed, where you have been working?
Robin: I think that the practice of medicine up here is really equivalent to any of the big centers, especially in the northeast. You are right, we could have chosen to go anywhere and we absolutely chose to come here partly because of the medicine that’s practiced here, the quality of my colleagues, and the quality of life. They both are huge draws, so I don’t think we feel like we compromised on that front. If I were doing medical research, there are bigger centers for that, but as far as practicing medicine and the kind of lifestyle and the kind of opportunities that Portland and this area offers, were really the major draw.
Lisa: You made kind of a big decision a few years back and that was to really limit your practice to gynecology as opposed to obstetrics and obstetrics of course is delivering babies and gynecology is care of women and surgery that women need. Why did you make that decision and was there a lifestyle issue involved?
Robin: Absolutely. I found myself in a situation where I was on call or backup call about every fourth night. My husband was on call every third night and we had four small children and in-laws trying to coordinate care for our children and it just became too hectic. I think I realized that it was not sustainable. I did that for about seven years up here. At that time we were covering two hospitals. I think I recognized that I could not keep doing it. Something had to give. I did make that decision and I feel very fortunate that my partners allowed me to make that decision.
We actually took some time figuring out how to do it. We hired another person. It was very important to me not to change their lifestyles. Not to have them take more call when I dropped out. It was a process that took about a year and then I stepped down from obstetrics and continued my practice in gynecology. It is not to say it wasn’t difficult. I loved obstetrics but I had to give up something and I just found that I was too exhausted to take care of my own children and balance everything in a healthy way.
Lisa: This is a theme that has carried through in your practice. You care for women who often have the same sorts of concerns. There is difficulty with balance. This work-life balance that we are all trying so desperately to achieve.
Robin: It is a very elusive thing and I think it changes all the time as well. We are inundated with technology. I was thinking the other day that 10 years ago, we didn’t have the same kind of emails and telephones and we are under so much pressure, whether it is from our personal lives or family or professional lives. I think I did realize that I couldn’t quite manage to do it that way and do it well. I think we always have to ask ourselves if we don’t make a change, what’s it going to be at the end of the day? Are we going to be happy with the choices that we made?
As much as I loved obstetrics I have not looked back. I have taken up other kinds of areas. I have gotten colleges that are interesting and I have been able to achieve the better balance in my life. I do see patients every day that have these same kind of issues and I think women in particular are under a lot of pressure and they are often not able to make those choices and they struggle with doing what they need to do. I do try to help people with that. Particularly their financial issues for people as well. I see many people that are either under employed or over employed to try to make ends meet and I feel fortunate that I could make some of these changes, not everybody can, but I think they are small changes that we can all make in priority.
Lisa: What are some of the biggest struggles that your patients come in and discuss with you? What are some of the things that they come in and say, “I have this New Year’s resolution? This is what I would like to change?”
Robin: I think people being overweight is probably the most difficult thing that I try to help them with, because most people are aware that they are overweight, that they need to work harder, that they need to put themselves first, they need to start exercising, and they just can’t seem to make the time or find the time. It has been a lot of time working through people’s days, even asking what they eat for breakfast, how they eat lunch, whether they travel and trying to find some area where they could actually find time to exercise or do something for them because I think people get overwhelmed and then it affects their self-esteem and then it affects their mood. It is tremendously important but we have to say no a little bit more. We have to say, “I need to go exercise.” Maybe you can’t have the whole family for holiday. Maybe you have to say no to certain things and make some more time.
Lisa: It can also be a little overwhelming when we think about the recommendations that are out there around things like exercise. For example, the Centers for Disease Control has a certain set of guidelines about exercising. If I’m a patient, I’m reading these guidelines and I think “Wow, they will never measure up.”
Robin: But often times they are unrealistic and I think it is extremely important that people come up with especially given the New Year, realistic goals for themselves. They should start small because there is something really satisfying about making a goal that you can attain, almost brings back those kindergarten years with those sticker charts.
If you come up with bringing lunch to work, three days out of the week or exercising three days out of the week, maybe you don’t make the five right away but I think the small steps that you can attain are really important, something very satisfying about that. I also recommend that people don’t come up with a nearest goal of losing 30 pounds right off the bat, start with five. Start with just exercising without losing weight. That can be helpful.
Lisa: Once people have achieved some sort of a goal in the New Year, one of the issues that people will often kind of bump up against is continuing with that over time. What types of things do you see?
Robin: That’s a big struggle. I think you have to put in enough time so that you reap some of the benefits and I truly believe with exercise the vast majority of people really do get those benefits whether it is mood, self-esteem, whether they sleep better, whether feel better. I spend a lot of time talking about joint disease with women because for example, our knees bear something like five times our weight, so even if they lose five pounds it is 25 pounds off their knees. You hope that they achieve something that gives them that opportunity to reflect and say this really is important to me, but there is always that worry about the plateau, the losing faith in your plan and we need maybe that accountability of checking in with somebody.
Lisa: And is that what you provide in your practices, the accountability piece?
Robin: I do. I find that in healthcare a lot of people don’t spend time talking about weight and I do offer my patients if they need a place to come back to, come back and see me in two months. Let’s make a realistic goal. Let’s weigh you and I think sometimes just knowing that they have that appointment helps them or if they can find a friend or a family member or coworker that they can work with.
Lisa: You mentioned joint issues as one of the problems associated with obesity. What else are you seeing as problems associated with obesity?
Robin: There are cardiovascular issues I think beyond the joint; I think at a certain point, people don’t remain active. If they get big enough, they just feel like they can’t exercise. They don’t have the endurance. Then we reach towards other options as well, even bariatric surgery ends up being an option for some people because the data just demonstrates that it is extraordinarily difficult to lose large quantities of weight.
Lisa: What about the psychological ramifications of being overweight in this culture?
Robin: I think they are even twofold because I think many times we see obesity and weight problems as a result of depression. I think often people start off in this situation where they are either unhappy or they are eating for the wrong reasons and then it really magnifies the issue. I think certainly there are issues related to the discrimination. I think there are issues related to even socializing. People are less likely to go out and meet people and do new things that can be really beneficial for their mood. I think it ends up being a problem that has many facets.
Lisa: Of course we know that diabetes is another disease that has become increasingly prevalent in our country and is something that is associated largely with obesity.
Robin: Absolutely. One thing I really talk to my patients about is really how we eat and how we shop and how we cook because what we are seeing now more than ever is this epidemic of childhood obesity. I really feel if I can get these women to eat a little bit better and be healthier it really does have an impact on the children because ultimately they go out to the store, they buy the food. Food is extremely expensive now but they still can make some choices and have their entire family eating better.
Lisa: Obesity and wanting to lose weight and wanting to exercise better, those are some of the things that are New Year’s resolutions kind of circle around. What are some of the other things that your patients that your patients discuss with you?
Robin: A lot of depression and anxiety and I do find that we spend a lot of the time in our mind thinking about the future and thinking about the past and worrying about the future. That often causes a lot of anxiety and I think one of the things I even find I struggle with is trying to be more present in the moment, trying to savor something, whether it is small as a cup of coffee or hot bath or doing something that you love in the present can really help people because we don’t know what the future holds and I think if we spend a lot of time thinking about it and worrying about it, it is not productive and it is detrimental to our moods and our health and wellness.
Lisa: Finances are of course something that everybody thinks about but we as doctors don’t always get this conversation in the office. Do your patients talk to you about the difficulties associated with money issues?
Robin: They do particularly with stressors on their time and even on their marriage. Many people either try to find work or to find a partner that is unemployed and they do talk about it. Strains with their children going off to school. They also talk to me about the difficult transitions in life when they have empty nest or when they retire, so they do talk about finances and I do think it is a big piece of how we feel and our health and wellness and our mental health.
Lisa: How do you approach this? Obviously you and I both went to medical school. We don’t get a lot of training on how to counsel people on their finances.
Robin: I have to say I probably learned on the job. I think I try to find some of these outlets that really don’t cost a lot of money. As we talked about just enjoying a cup of coffee or a walk or things that don’t have to cost a lot of money and I think sometimes we have to encourage people to make difficult choices. Maybe they don’t need everything that they think that they need. Maybe they don’t need that second shot. Maybe they can brainstorm a way to make something else work. I do try to help them with that.
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Lisa: You have four children and they range in age from 16 to 9, that’s a busy family. I imagine you see the same sort of thing with your patients. What are some of the questions that people come in to discuss with you when it comes to family?
Robin: I think most people wrestle with are they doing enough for everybody in their life? Are they meeting the needs of their little kids, are they meeting the needs of their teenagers? Do they know where their teenagers are and what they are doing? Are they functioning not only in the workplace but even at home as a mother, as a wife or as a partner and I think we have a hard time reassessing that all the time and worrying that we are not doing a good enough job on all these fronts and I think at the end of the day we have to realize that we have to do the best we can and if we don’t do some things for ourselves and if we are not happy and comfortable with where we are at some level we are not going to be very good at those things.
Lisa: Are you better able to offer perspective on this given your own choices about not continuing obstetrics or making a life choice as far as moving to Maine?
Robin: I think I have that vantage point but I also think I have been very lucky to be able to make those choices and not everybody has those opportunities. If you get the education that allows you to make choices that helps but I still think we all still have some choice.
Lisa: What about smoking? Is it still an issue with women in your practice?
Robin: It is but fortunately a smaller issue. It seems to be a smaller issue. I do talk about it a lot. It does have an impact of so many things that we take care of particularly cervical cancer and cardiovascular disease and many other cancers but addiction like that is really difficult to handle particularly when people feel like they are at the end of their rope and they are balancing all these things and they turn to comfort things. I think hopefully if you get people on their better spot thinking about health and wellness and some of the ramifications that their choices are making, it can be helpful.
Lisa: That’s an interesting point that it is not just smoking, it is really addictions of any sort, whether they are substances, drugs, food, anything that you are sort of turning to for comfort.
Robin: That brings us back to those resolutions too, for some people that might be that they need to drink less alcohol. For other people, it is eat less or exercise more. For other people, it might be organizing their life or making choices but I think we can make improvements and recognize where on our lives we need to make them.
Lisa: Do you feel that you’ve been able to be a positive role model for your own children as a result of making some of the choices that you made?
Robin: I hope so. I don’t think we know for quite some time.
Lisa: What are some of your favorite things to do in Maine in the winter? This is something that comes up for me with my patients all the time. I know it is cold, they don’t want to go outside. Maybe they are not skiers. They just so … what do they do, how do they keep that weight off? How do they maintain enthusiasm for living? It is kind of dark, it is kind of cold. What do you like to do in winter?
Robin: It is dark and cold. I do think that the gear that is out there is so much better than 20 years ago. I do think it is possible to stay warm in many of those situations and I think there is something tremendously helpful about daylight that if we can get out in some kind of daylight hour, even if it is in the weekend that that’s very rejuvenating. I talk to them about what their plan is because often people have exercise plans that really vary throughout the seasons and they will be very active in the summer and they will do nothing in the winter.
For some people, it has to be a piece of equipment and a room in their house. I try to recommend that they get it out of the basement because it is often not used in the basement and they are available on all sorts as used equipment, on Uncle Henry’s, craigslist. It doesn’t have to be a huge expense. Some people walk in the mall. Some people still walk around the back home. I think they are accessible places but I do like to ski and get out.
Lisa: What’s your hope for the new year?
Robin: Be a little bit more present, savor those moments. Not worry as much about what the future might bring. I think that’s really helpful and I like to do something new, some kind of new activity or new hobby and I think that’s really helpful for people if they take a class or try some new activity like snowshoeing or doing LL Bean Discovery program. There are a lot of things that don’t cause lot of money that can help us learn a new skill and enjoy something.
Lisa: We’ve been speaking with Dr. Robin Noble who is a gynecologist with InterMed right here in Portland. Dr. Noble, how do people connect with you, maybe become a patient of yours or just learn more about you?
Robin: They can just call my office.
Lisa: And the number there …
Robin: … is 874-2445.
Lisa: Dr. Noble we appreciate you coming in and speaking with us today and appreciate the work that you are doing in the wellness world and all the lives that you’ve touched here in the Portland area and other parts of New England where you’ve trained. We encourage people who are interested in finding out more about you to read the 2012 Maine Magazine wellness issue. Thanks for coming in today.
Robin: Thanks for having me.
Lisa: As a physician and small business owner, I rely on Marci Booth from Boothmaine to help me with my own business and to help me live my own life fully. Here are a few thoughts from Marci.
Marci: As you settle into this new year, I hope you take a moment to consider the health of your business and how you can make certain it continues to thrive. Now is the perfect time for a business checkup. It is a perfect time to reflect on the systems and processes you had in place last year to determine what worked and what didn’t run as smoothly as it should have. Write down the specific changes you would like to implement to tighten things up over the next month, three months, six months or a year. Give yourself realistic tasks and goals. This introspection and planning will go a long way toward making certain that 2014 is a year of great success. I’m Marci Booth. Let’s talk about the changes you need boothmaine.com.
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Lisa: I have heard about this couple for probably a few years now because I’ve had patients who have come to see me who have said, “Did you know of this great lifestyle choices program going on at Parkview Hospital in Brunswick?” I spent time looking into it when I had my patients come and see me and it is impressive. It is really impressive in today’s day and age to see something that’s really down, really back to basics as to what we should be teaching our patients. Today we have with us Dr. Tim How and his wife Lynn. They are the director and instructor with the lifestyle choices program at Parkview Hospital. Thanks for coming in and talking to us today.
Tim: Thank you for having us.
Lisa: Dr. Howe, you are also board certified in internal medicine and you’ve practiced in Brunswick for 24 years.
Tim: That’s correct.
Lisa: You are a kind of a powerhouse of prevention over there. We thought that for our new year’s show we really wanted to give people some inspiration and let them think about why it is that we want to live our lives in a healthy way and you do this on a regular basis in your class.
Tim: That’s right. We’ve been holding the class two to four times a year since 1995. We’ve had almost probably close to 2000 people go through the program now.
Lisa: Describe this program to me and what it is that makes it so … what’s the core of it and why is it so special and important?
Tim: The course is a 10-day course. The participants come before the course starts and receive testing, both laboratory testing and testing for fitness level. They go through the course and then are tested again. We have data for the last since 1995 on all the patients that have gone through and the data is fairly consistent. The average person to take the course loses four pounds, the average person sees a drop of 10 points in their blood pressure and about 10 points in their pulse as well. the average drop in cholesterol in a two-week period is about 50 points.
Now some of the patients who come don’t need to lose weight and they don’t. Others really need to lose weight and lose a lot. It is variable but on average a 4-pound weight loss and they feel better. Interestingly after the first night or two, they are not sure whether they feel better or not, but then as their body rids itself of some of the toxins etc., they start perking up and by the end of the first week, they are uniformly feeling better and in the end of the few weeks, they are feeling much better.
It is fun to see. I suppose that’s what keeps us doing the course, seeing the results. It is not a money maker as such; in fact for the first 15 years I did it for free and recently, they’ve given us a stipend for doing it. The course breaks even but it doesn’t make a lot of money but the rewards are it is seeing the people change and seeing their health improve.
Lisa: To feel their excitement as well. I see people regularly at a cooking class that I do that have been the graduates of the lifestyle course and pretty uniformly, they are still so excited. They are walking, leading very active lives again and some of them had to slow down. It has been a real life change for them. It is highly rewarding.
Tim: The way the program is set up is the participants come in the evening and they are fed supper. Then an exercise period and then we have cooking demonstrations and then lecture. Then they get a takeout breakfast and lunch. For two weeks essentially to actually 10 days, you get all your food and then you get instruction on how to prepare, you get the recipes for the food as well. Insurance covers it. We have good enough data that all the major insurances including Medicare cover. It is a good deal for the participants. You can go to live-in places and get a similar program, but that’s usually 1000s of dollars whereas this is available to anyone who has insurance and those who don’t we often work something out.
Lisa: The program itself is based I know from a dietary standpoint, it is based on plant.
Tim: It is a whole food plant based diet and that is no animal products, it is nothing that had a mother or a face. It is a plant based diet and unrefined that is very few if any refined sugars and no vegetable oils. That’s in a diet that is necessary for everyone but it is particularly helpful if you are trying to reverse serious illness, diabetes type II, coronary artery disease. If you are working to put those at rest if you will or to reverse them in some cases, that’s the diet that does it the fastest.
Lisa: You also mentioned that that has an impact on aging.
Tim: Yes. Aging is an interesting process. Diet will not convey immortality and I think that’s really important to understand but there is quite a bit of evidence now that the way we eat can impact us tremendously in how fast we age. Changing our diet can make us feel younger again. One of my own patients who took the course, he was in his … he just retired, so he is about 65-66. He took the course and at the end of it, he said, “I haven’t felt this well since I was 16.” That’s really what we are aiming for, is for the participants to feel better, not in 10 years but within two weeks.
I would say the majority do feel that difference within the two-week period and that’s what keeps us doing it.
Lisa: Lynn, you have a master’s in public health and you also have a bachelor’s degree in social work. A lot of what you have studied has to do with change. What are you seeing peoples struggles as being when they come in and you are asking them to make these dramatic changes in their lifestyles?
Lynn: That’s an excellent question. I think initially when people go from a meat-based diet to a plant-based diet, I think there is some resistance. Obviously for all of us change is hard, but what I have found is once people taste something and if it tastes really good, then they say “Okay. I’m on it. I can buy into this.” I think one thing that I have seen work really well working with change is you can’t just take something out. It is really important to put something good in. That goes for what we are eating or even what we are thinking about.
If you are practicing really healthy thoughts and thinking, that’s important. If we just kind of focus in on taking out bitterness and negative thinking without putting some really good thinking or being thankful for the snow and finding good ways to enjoy winter, all those things are life changing. For people who are changing their diet, when you learn how to make a terrific salad dressing or you figure out that you can still make a vegan macaroni and cheese that tastes amazingly good, then it is like, “Okay. I can be happy with this.”
Then also I think it is helpful for people when they are changing when they just have that sense of renewed vitality. You realize, “You know I need to go hike for several miles. I can go climb a mountain.” For many people, those options are being out of reach, it is very affirming for those positive choices.
Tim: I think it is much easier today than when we started. When we started the course, the biggest question that people had was how can this diet ever give me the nutrition that I really need? Where are you going to get your protein? At first, we had a whole night on the adequacy of protein in a vegan diet. That’s not even a question anymore. Now there are vegetarian restaurants, there are vegan restaurants. There are people that are moving toward a plant based whole food diet, but it is still that’s one of the biggest impediments to change is, where do I go out to eat? Fortunately there are some restaurants here in Portland and a few elsewhere that they can now go and eat.
I was just working with one of my friends who has opened a bowling alley in Brunswick or he has taken over management of it, and he wants to have a plant based whole food options in his restaurant. So we are sitting down with him and with his cook and we are coming up with some options on the menu. That’s important. The other thing that’s hard for the participants to make the change is when they go to family gatherings. What we encourage them is to become cooks themselves. The people that really do well at this are ones that become foodies. They just embrace this and pretty soon they are cooking for all their friends.
We have one couple that’s gone through it several times and at their church, they have potlucks quite frequently. They become so good at cooking, everybody eats their dish first and now I just heard they had a raffle where they raffled off this and that to raise money for their church. They raffled off six tickets for a whole food plant based diet. They went for 50, 60 bucks a piece. They’ve embraced it and now when they go out to their family gatherings, everybody wants to eat their food because it can taste really good and you just have to learn how to cook it and that’s why we spend so much time in food preparation and recipes and things like that so that people can realize that the food can taste really good.
If I’m going to live longer by eating stuff that taste bad, I’m not interested. I want my food to taste as good as it did and better. Lynn and I, we have been vegetarian for quite a while, but when we went whole food plant based, at first I felt like I gone to [Ashwoods 00:39:11] or something, but then we learned to cook it and the food tastes better now than it used to. We have people come to our home very frequently. In fact it is rare for us to sit down just the two of us and no one has ever said, “I don’t want to come back here.” They are all waiting for the next invite because the food tastes great.
Lisa: I know that part of the reason you are interested in promoting this diet has roots in your faith, in your spiritual practice. You are both Seventh Day Adventists and Parkview is a Seventh Day Adventist hospital. I did do some reading. I believe it was Ellen White who wrote the book that you recommended that day.
Tim: Ministry of Healing.
Lisa: Ministry of Healing and there is this sense of really treating the body like a temple. Actually the Ministry of Healing this book that you suggested that I read had chapters on being a physician and this idea of healing as being akin to a spiritual calling. Has this infiltrated your work as a physician in the last 24 years?
Tim: Absolutely. I would say it is at the core, not that I wish to convert everyone to my way of thinking but rather as I think scripture portrays Christ. He went around relieving suffering because he valued people and their bodies. I see myself as involved in the same type of work, to relieve suffering and to teach people to value their bodies as wonderful organisms designed by god to heal themselves when treated right. I think that’s so important for us and really core for us to realize that we have a responsibility to take care of our own body.
80% of what I see in my office is disease that is brought on in some degree because of the way patients mistreat their bodies. If I can get them to see that their body is a gift given to them to take care of and nurture and that if they do, it will take care of them and they will have a fuller, happier, richer life then change is a lot easier. I think that god will help people make that change. Whether they believe in him or not because I don’t think his major interest is controlling people but rather encouraging them to have the greatest freedom possible for life and health and wellbeing.
Lisa: The goal of the Dr. Lisa Radio hour is to help make connections between the health of the individual and the health of the community. The goal of Ted Carter Inspired Landscapes is to deepen our appreciation for the natural world. Here to speak with us today is Ted Carter.
Ted: One of the things I do often is to compass rose in a landscape and the compass rose points to the four directions of the universe. It is something that I really love to do because it does call out those very powerful directions. The north is really the head based energy, the place of light buffalo. It is where wisdom and knowledge live but it is also where conflict lives. We live in the northern hemisphere. We are part of that whole ethos I guess you might say, where south America is a place of play. It is a place of innocence, a place of trust, a place of love and if you look at the South American people, they are very much like that.
The east is about bringing new beginnings into our lives. When we look toward the east, it is always about what are the new things that can happen and come into our life. The west is moving into the darkness. Into the mysterious, into the most powerful I guess you might say of all directions because we have to move through the darkness to get to the other side. To get to the side of re-birthing and bringing new things into our lives. Our lifetime is spent with a series of peaks and valleys where we move from a place of creation and raise of that creation and the care of creating that creation to the maintenance of that creation.
Then eventually we move into the disintegration of that creation. We have to be looking toward the future and toward on what’s happening on our lives to not let that valley go down too deep and to start pick up something else new and start to rise again with it. if you look at your own life, I think you can see that pattern. It is quite evident and it is natural. It is the same thing as the seasons. The spring, the summer, the fall, and the winter.
I’m Ted Carter and if you would like to contact me, I can be reached at tedcarterdesign.com.
Lisa: The Dr. Lisa radio hour and broadcast understands the importance of the health of the body, mind, and spirit and here to talk about the health of the body is Jim Greatorex of Premier Sports Health, a division of Blackbear Medical.
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Lisa: Spirituality is something that I know to be very important. I know it from my patient population as well and it is something that’s tricky because many people when they are associated with a church have almost felt judged by an inability to sort of achieve some sort of ideal perfection, but that’s not what you are saying. You are not saying this is the perfect thing, be perfect. You are saying, “This is the way I look at it and here is the way to treat your body in a way so that it can be with you in a healthy way for the rest of your life.” No matter what your spiritual practice is.
Tim: Absolutely and we have all sorts of people come to our course. Those who believe in a god. Those who don’t believe in a god. Jews, Muslims, Christians, people that have an inner faith but no … that’s fine. All are welcome. We encourage people to think clearly about spirituality because it affects us all but the purpose of the course is not to convert someone except in this sense. Sometimes we have ideas about who god is that are hurtful to us. I like to point out be careful what you worship because it is a law of our being that we become like what we worship.
Choose the god that is better than you are. That’s critical. If there is a mean, vindictive god in your way of thinking who is out to get you and who is demanding that’s not going to be good for your health. It is not going to be elevating to you as a person. In my way of thinking, if there is a god and personally I think there is, but if there is a god he’s got to be better than I’m.
Lisa: You have two sons that are also in medical school and I guess Lynn you just came back from visiting them and then you have another son who is going to be doing some work out of the country in social justice, it sounds like.
Tim: Our oldest son was in Ethiopia with his wife for four years as administrator of a rural hospital in Western Ethiopia. He is currently in administration in Florida in Florida hospital but he has thought and his wife too about going back overseas. I don’t think they made firm plans on that but knowing them as I do, they are like my wife, a bitter gypsy at heart and adventurous. I would guess that before many years go by they will be back overseas working in development relief or healthcare where it is desperately needed.
Lisa: There is this possibly sense of ministry that is being kind of filtered down in your family.
Lynn: I think so and I think there is a spiritual imperative to give and to share and to just spend your life for others that is core for us. That there is a lot of meaning and happiness in giving and sharing to others and seeing other people blessed. I think our oldest son Paul has definitely really experienced that with his time in Ethiopia and really looking forward to getting back overseas.
Tim: I think if we are going to make a dividing line between what’s good and what’s bad or what’s spiritual and what isn’t, the good would be give-give and the destructive would be get-get. That’s really the dividing line for us. Give-give versus get-get.
Lisa: What you are talking about in this situation is somehow translated into the class that you teach at Parkview in some way?
Tim: Absolutely. We talk about this and usually it is the … the class usually starts on a Monday night and I start with philosophy of health. That’s the first lecture and we talk about some of this and then again on Friday night, we have lectures particularly on spirituality and health. I think scientific literature points out very clearly that people who have faith live longer and experience less illness. There is a quite few studies out of Britain to that effect. I think that if we ignore that we are doing a disservice to the participants in the class and our patients as well.
We encourage people to explore their spirituality and encourage them to do it in such a way that it is helpful and supportive to change. Because if there is a god, he should be a good god and if he is a good god he’d want to help us and god knows we all need help. The apostle Paul many years ago wrote, the good that I would that I do not and evil that I would not that do I or as Flip Wilson used to say, “The devil made me do it.” There is a sense within us all of this struggle between doing what we know we should and what we know we shouldn’t. I think it is self-evident that the first major cause of death in this country is not coronary artery disease and it is not cancer. It is people not doing what they know they should do.
The second most common is the flip of that and that is people doing what they know they shouldn’t do. Those are the two most common causes of death. So okay we’ve got to deal with that. Why is that that I’m not doing what I should and doing what I know I shouldn’t. I think there is a spiritual answer to that. Values clarification is the term that’s used in some of the literature, but if we don’t deal with that, we are not going to be very effective at change.
Lisa: I talk to a lot of doctors of course and healthcare providers of other sorts and of course we are going through this really significant time of transition within the medical field. I wonder if part of us trying to make through this transition in a healthy way is understanding this higher calling again. When I began medical school, there was a sense that medicine was a higher calling as opposed to simply a business and I’m not sure that that is or isn’t a sense anymore but I wonder if there is a way that we can somehow lock into whatever this looks like, whether it has something to do with god or some other spiritual entity, do you think that this could help us as physicians better serve our patients, better serve ourselves and our families?
Tim: Absolutely, I think it is imperative that physicians regain the high ground and in the book that I recommended, Ministry of Healing, that chapter physicians as educators I think she capsulizes as well what needs to happen. She says physicians need to recognize that they are responsible not only for the patients under their direct care but also for the health of the communities in which they live. That’s really why we started the program, because I made my living off the backs of ill, broken people in a sense. They don’t come to me unless they are sick and we are making money on them and the number one cause of bankruptcy in this country today is illness.
If I’m not doing my best to keep people well and prevent illness, I’m a miserable sort of fella and I think it is imperative that we as physicians belly up to the idea that we’ve gotten more to do than make money. We have a real responsibility to work to keep our communities well in any way we can.
Lisa: How can people find out more about the program that you teach at Parkview?
Tim: They can call Parkview Hospital that would be 373-2000 and ask about lifestyle choices. We usually hold two programs in the spring and two in the fall because the winter is the hard time to get out in Maine and no one wants to be inside in the summer.
Lisa: I appreciate your coming in and sharing your long, many years wisdom on whole food plant based diet and the work that you do as a physician Dr. Howe and the work that you are doing with instructing people on cooking, Lynn. We’ve been speaking with Lynn and Tim, Dr. Tim Howe, from Brunswick, Freeport. We encourage people to go and spend some time thinking about their own lifestyle choices. Thank you for being here.
Tim: Thank you.
Lynn: Thank you very much.
Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. You’ve been listening to the Dr. Lisa radio hour and podcast, show #121. Wellness in the New Year. Our guests have included Dr. Robin Noble and Dr. Timothy Howe and Lynn Howe. For more information on our guests and extended interviews visit doctorlisa.org, The Dr. Lisa Radio hour and podcast is downloadable for free on iTunes. For preview of each week’s show, sign up for our enewsletter and like our Dr. Lisa Facebook page. Follow me on twitter and Pinterest and read my take on health and wellbeing on the bountiful blog. We love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of the Dr. Lisa Radio hour. We welcome your suggestions for feature shows.
Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring the Dr. Lisa radio hour to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our wellness in the new year show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.
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The Dr. Lisa radio hour is recorded in the studio of Maine Magazine at 75, Market St, Portland, Maine. Our executive producers are Kevin Thomas and Dr. Lisa Belisle. Audio production and original music by John C. McKane. Our assistant producer is [Liang Wimet 00:58:42]; our online producer is [Katie Kallaghar 00:58:47]. Become a subscriber of Dr. Lisa Belisle on iTunes. See the Dr. Lisa website or Facebook page for details. Summaries of all our past shows can be found at doctorlisa.org.