What are we doing at the San Diego Cancer Research Institute?
As medical oncologists, we work daily with people who live with cancer. We have the opportunity of seeing many patients do better than expected; many enjoy a good quality of life despite dealing with life threatening cancers. How can we interpret this? There are many possible explanations, but it would be helpful to investigate this scientifically and come up with answers that can be shared with everyone in the medical community.

At our non-profit, the San Diego Cancer Research Institute, we are looking into finding answers to many of these questions. We have Integrative Educational Programs available online because we firmly believe in their effectiveness. These approaches not only make people feel better and improve their quality of life, but can also impact their response to medical therapy and very likely improve their prognosis. We need to demonstrate this in order to spread the benefits of Integrative Medicine throughout the community.

The healing environment plays a crucial role in helping patients get well. An “Optimal Healing Environment” is paramount although it may be somewhat difficult to apply in certain medical settings. I firmly believe we would see a significant impact on patients’ outcomes if we transformed the typical medical office/hospital

Our Team plans to demonstrate the positive effect an Optimal Healing Environment has on patients’ outcomes. We would also record what effect different Healing Arts have on patients undergoing therapy for cancer. These would include mind-body techniques, massage, yoga, meditation, herbal therapy, nutrition, oriental medicine procedures such as acupuncture, etc. We are collaborating with other institutions and programs that are interested in researching these same issues. Ultimately our goal is to help individual patients by coming up with optimal therapeutic methodologies and to increase the level of awareness and compassion throughout our medical system and society.