Agenda

Part One: Cultural-Based Care using Indigenous Reiki TM and Curanderismo Perspective
This presentation is intended to demonstrate the integration of cultural healthcare methods with traditional western medical practices and treatment plans. The primary focus is on underserved and diverse demographic groups who are most reflective in the social determinants of health data, in conjunction with identified historical healthcare disparities. In the spirit of inclusion; all groups affected by trauma and socio-economic challenges would have access to the services proposed. The model of Indigenous Reiki was created and trademarked more than ten years ago. Dr. Chavez combined family Spanish, Mexican and Native American traditional and indigenous practices from the Southwestern United States. Ancestral Medicine addresses how many people of color had the comfort and strength of their ancestral beliefs stripped from them. Historical trauma has affected how people of color value themselves affecting health, self-esteem and confidence. Effective incorporation of spiritual care has the potential to fundamentally influence how individuals interpret their well-being and how they seek meaning in general health and serious illness. Spirituality in many traditional/indigenous cultures is not about religion. It is often understood as connectedness, acceptance of the mystery of life and our aspirations to feel alive with vitality. Ceremonies and rituals are woven into the fabric of life but not always recognized. The experience will demonstrate how using powerful words, mantras, music, sound, aromatic smells, acuricular acupuncture and touch can renew the spirit, relax the mind and heal the body. The model was provided in group settings, fully funded in CCVS HB 18-1409 through Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, reaching over 200% enrollment and over 93% of the historically underserved. Demonstrated outcomes were reduced symptoms of chronic pain, anxiety and depression. Dr Chavez's goal has been Diversity/Equity/Inclusion to demonstrate the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of traditional and indigenous health modalities for inclusion in primary care with the support of clinical advisors and researchers using Whole Systems methods.

Part Two: Decolonizing Your Medicine: Guided Imagery Council
Council (aka "Talking Circle") is a facilitated group process that has been used for millennia, rooted in indigenous traditions throughout the world. In modern times, Council has been used in contemporary fields as diverse as social justice, education, and business. Council provides a container for effective delivery of Interactive Guided ImagerySM(IGI), a mind-body modality used to promote stress-reduction, behavioral change, or gain new insights into significant problems from the non-verbal, non-linear unconscious. In underserved, Latinx adolescents, we have shown Guided Imagery Council (GIC) is highly acceptable and deliverable, promotes empathy and group relatedness, reduces subjective stress and biomarker salivary cortisol levels, and reduces type 2 diabetes risk factors. We have also used GIC as a healing modality in young adults with type 1 diabetes, and to promote self-care among pediatric resident physicians serving underserved patients at a large, urban public hospital. This will be a hands-on, experiential workshop. Examples will first be described of the use of guided imagery council to decolonize the approach to patients in an urban, pediatric, academic subspecialty practice. Participants will learn and practice the main principals of Council: 1) sitting in a circle to minimize hierarchy; 2) using a designated object ( "talking piece") to empower "listening and speaking from the heart". In the format of Council, participants will share personal stories of how their training and/or ongoing practice has been colonized by Western-based hierarchical medical practices in ways that limit optimal healing. A guided imagery experience will then be facilitated, inviting images specific to each participant that show or symbolize ways the participants might decolonize their own, personal practice. Extensive discussion and Q&A, conducted in council, will then help participants debrief and integrate the full experience of the session.

This experiential workshop will focus on integrative health practitioners' experiences with receiving patient feedback, both privately and publicly in the form of patient reviews.Throughout training, health providers receive frequent evaluation of their clinical and professional skills from preceptors and supervisors. Once providers become independent practitioners, however, the bulk of the feedback they receive is likely to be from patients. Feedback from patients in all its forms (i.e. directly delivered to the provider by the patient or collected via formal patient satisfaction surveys) is an important addition to the potential tools for quality improvement and provider growth, both at the systems and individual level. While large institutions (i.e., hospital systems) have programs dedicated to analyzing and responding to patient surveys at the collective level, most individual providers do not have training, guidance, or support in how to use this information for personal and professional growth. This workshop will provide a supportive environment in which we as integrative health providers can explore experiences with and responses to public and non-public critical patient feedback. Through facilitated discussion, we will provide a framework for receiving this feedback and using it productively for individual and systems growth and improvement. We will present and then practice strategies informed by mindfulness to help process emotional responses to patient feedback that may get in the way of using it for self-reflection or improvement. We will also discuss systems-level interventions and organizational support structures that can help individual providers and teams receive, consider, and use patient feedback more constructively.