Letters from Dr. Daniel Vicario, Medical Director
February 1st, 2021
Integrative Oncology Resources and Daily Ritual Summary, Checklist, and Reminders
by Daniel Vicario, M.D.
I’ve had the honor and privilege to work with cancer patients for over 3 decades. During the last few years, I’ve done this as an Integrative Oncologist. I’ve been fortunate to learn so much from them over the years, and I continue to do so with each visit and conversation. I’ve been able to keep a list of tools, empowering and inspiring concepts that continue to evolve. Several of these ideas/experiences I’ve been able to share in the video interviews and as lists of resources detailed in the following summary sheets.
Please share with anyone you believe could benefit from them.
The following are the Integrative Oncology Resources and Daily Ritual Summary, Checklist, and Reminders lists from Dr. Vicario. Click on the links below for printable PDF versions.
Follow this link to the Patient Information Downloads to view these lists and other files in PDF format.
June 16th, 2020
“Racism, discrimination, and inequality in healthcare. A proposal of comprehensive guidelines as a collective response.”
The events that we’ve been seeing occur over the last several months are a reminder of the pervasive racism, discrimination, and inequality that unfortunately continues to transpire in our country. It affects our population on all levels, and especially those who are dealing with a serious illness. For cancer patients and those who care for them, this is particularly concerning and harmful. We would like to share a few articles that bring to light the longstanding and persistent discrimination we sadly continue to experience in our country.
- American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Responding to Racism and Health Inequality as a Cancer Care Community, June 2020
- American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Stands Against Racial Discrimination and Inequality, June 2020
- Harvard Health Racism and discrimination in health care for providers and patients, January 2017
- Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Academic medical leaders and learners reflect on police brutality, racism, and the path forward, June 2020
- The Cancer Letter Here’s what cancer groups say about police brutality and health disparities, June 2020
- The Washington Post The cure for racial disparities in health care is known. It’s the willingness to fix it that’s lagging, April 2020
- Conscious Healing Initiative, Healing Our Nation Addressing Systemic Trauma with Communities of Color, June 2020
With love, deep gratitude and much appreciation,
SDCRI Integrative Oncology leadership
May 22nd, 2020
To Our Dear Readers,
We continue to experience challenging times due to the current health crises. There are different groups that are significantly more affected. Amongst them are those who are living with cancer and their loved ones who are supporting them. We know that cancer takes an emotional toll, and this is significantly exacerbated by the steps that are needed during a pandemic: physical separation, having to stay at home more often, unable to go to the usual places one enjoys, disruption in the medical clinics and hospitals, the uncertainty of what this virus can cause if one gets infected, etc.
One of our main focuses as a nonprofit cancer institution is in the quality of life of those with cancer and their support team. We want you to know that our thoughts and hearts are with you and supporting you, especially during this very challenging and emotionally trying time. For this reason, we want to share some resources that you can consider reviewing. Most of these are local in Southern California:
- Our dear Dr. Paul Brenner’s writings, blog, and videos on our SDCRI website
- Diana Shimkus’ Everyday Mindfulness classes and guided meditation.
- Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn has free daily guided meditations, conversations, and dialogue.
- NancysList.org offers a large collection of links to Financial Aid websites specifically for Cancer patients and their families.
- North County Cancer Fitness offers free fitness classes for cancer patients via live Zoom video meetings.
- Chopra Foundation At the bottom of this web page there are several videos of our friend Dr. Deepak Chopra. You can choose the topic you are most interested in.
- Positive Psychology: 25 Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Exercises and Courses. MBSR is a group program that was developed to treat patients struggling with life’s difficulties and physical and/or mental illness
There are definitely many other reliable and reputable websites. We plan to continue to add different resources on a regular basis.
We’ll continue to do our best to keep updating our SDCRI website and Facebook with material and resources that can be useful for cancer patients
and their loved ones.
With gratitude, warm regards, and best wishes,
Dr. Daniel Vicario and the SDCRI Team
March 19th, 2020
To Our Dear Readers,
As everyone is well aware, we are all experiencing a very challenging time with a disease known as COVID-19, which is a new coronavirus that has not been previously identified. The elderly and those who are living with serious medical conditions may be at higher risk for complications from this novel coronavirus.
As the situation is rapidly changing, if you wish to keep up with reliable information, we would recommend checking the following websites:
- Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
- California Department of Public Health
- San Diego County Health and Human Services
- San Diego County.gov information on coronavirus
- NIH: National Institutes of Health
- WHO: World Health Organization
- Johns Hopkins University
- Medicare Website regarding Coronavirus
- Medicaid website regarding Coronavirus Disease 2019
There are definitely many other reliable and reputable websites, but these are a good place to start.
In the meantime, we’ll do our best to keep updating our SDCRI website and Facebook with information that can continue to be helpful for cancer patients and their loved ones.
With gratitude, warm regards, and best wishes,
The SDCRI Team
December 2015
We would like to thank all of you for your donations throughout this year. Without donor support, the San Diego Cancer Research Institute would not be able to continue with its mission of education, collaboration, community outreach, and research.
Your generosity has helped Alessandra Colfi, Ph.D., to continue the International Hope Made Visible™ project: creating & sharing artful flags among cancer patients, survivors, families/friends, & caregivers. Funds for this project sent over 1,000 flags, from all over the USA, Canada, Colombia, Argentina, Guatemala, Ghana, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, and Australia, to Europe & throughout our community for display in several venues. Your donations have also funded our Hope Made Visible™ collaboration with Habitat for Humanity’s Veterans Program.
Continued support will allow SDCRI’s other educational programs to carry on and expand in 2016. SDCRI’s online nutrition program, Reality-Based Nutrition with Mary Hollander R.N., Dr. Paul Brenner’s Blog, SDCRI’s integrative oncology projects, collaborative research, and our educational videos.
Donations designated for cancer research are used for Dr. Mark Adler’s work in Genomic Oncology and Dr. Daniel Vicario’s work in Integrative Medicine. Dr. Vicario is collaborating in broad-based Integrative Research projects, working with several scientists, health practitioners, educators, researchers, professionals, nonprofit Institutes, and academic institutions to continue to expand research in the importance of embracing proven integrative healing modalities to support cancer patients. Thank you for your ongoing commitment to both of their work.
You were an integral part of the growth of SDCRI in 2015 and you can continue to be a part of its growth in the coming year by donating now. To contribute to this worthy cause, please make an online donation at our website, www.sdcri.org, by clicking on the DONATE button or by sending your donation to:
San Diego Cancer Research Institute
Attn: Mr. Claudio Garcia, CFO
910 Sycamore Ave., Suite 102
Vista, CA 92081
Sincerely,
SDCRI Board of Directors
San Diego Cancer Research Institute
501 (c) (3) Established 2001
December 5th, 2014
Update of Integrative Free services for SDCRI website, SDCRI Volunteers, and community.
To our dear San Diego County community,
As you are aware, the San Diego Cancer Research Institute (SDCRI) Integrative Oncology free services, which have been offered for over a decade, are now coming to an end. It has been a wonderful journey, and we are very grateful and proud of what was achieved. Although our services are now changing, our vision, our mission, and our commitment are as strong as ever. Times change, and so must we. The year 2015 will no doubt bring new ways to grow, so we invite you to explore the new setup and discover how you can still be part of our program.
SDCRI has worked to transition as many of its services as possible, both to community partners and larger institutions such as UCSD as of the end of this year. Fortunately, several North County partners have come forward to transition some of the programs to their sites, like yoga, mindfulness, and Zumba for cancer patients. These partners are detailed in the integrative section of our website, in hopes that patients will still access these modalities which have proven to be of great help. Please look them up and embrace the services. We understand that UCSD will be keeping the Pacific College of Oriental Medicine (PCOM) acupuncture program under the direction of Kim Taylor, and the Expressive Arts Program directed by Alessandra Colfi.
SDCRI will continue working with Alessandra Colfi on the “Hope made Visible” program, an inspirational project with flags of hope made by cancer patients from different places in the US and overseas. Congratulations to Alessandra and all those involved in this exciting project!
Dr. Paul Brenner will also continue with a web-based educational program on emotional support for cancer patients and their loved ones. He is creating several short inspirational videos that will be on our website very soon.
The San Diego Cancer Research Institute remains active in its mission of education, collaboration, and research, and all the pertinent information will always be available through this website. As of December 17, 2014, SDCRI will remain as a web-based resource and anticipates continuing its education and research collaborative efforts with several other respectable institutions.
Please continue to check our website, where you will find news and regular updates, educational programs, videos, and resources.
With love, deep gratitude, and much appreciation,
SDCRI Integrative Oncology leadership
September, 2014
Dear North San Diego County Community,
As many of you know, SDCRI’s Integrative free services have become very popular over the last several years, and more recently, there has been a significant increase in patient participation. The program has kept growing to accommodate the equally growing need for integrative support services for those dealing with cancer. Due to this increase in client participation, the Integrative free services have outgrown SDCRI’s ability to sustain them. Furthermore, three key supervisors of the program will be retiring or moving out of San Diego. You may have heard that, sadly, by the end of 2014, SDCRI will no longer be providing these free Integrative services in North County.
As these programs are so sought after and helpful to the patients, SDCRI is working with some larger institutions to find a way to transition over the operations of these free complimentary services. This would be an ideal situation for the community. The details still need to be figured out and we will keep you informed as it moves along, so please visit our website for updates. In the interim, we will keep the program running until the end of fall 2014.
The San Diego Cancer Research Institute, which was created in the year 2000, will continue as a non-profit with a focus on research, education, and collaboration. Our website will continue to offer educational programs, resources, updated news on integrative oncology, etc.
SDCRI is deeply grateful for all the volunteers’ love and selfless dedication to the welfare of the patients, the program, and the community over the past many years. The Integrative program was created almost 15 years ago and has become not only very successful but also a role model in its field and for other institutions to follow. Thousands of patients and family members have been supported over the years and for that, we are deeply grateful and very proud.
With love, deep gratitude, and much appreciation,
SDCRI Integrative Oncology leadership