Dharmadoctors.org is dedicated to serving health care practitioners by providing Buddhist resources and inspiration for the enhancement of their practices and the benefit of their patients. Both Medicine and Buddhism are fundamentally concerned with alleviating suffering, and a dialogue between these two great traditions seems not only natural, but of particular relevance in today’s climate of health care crisis. There are already many examples where the fertile ideas of Buddhist thought have made deep inroads into specific areas of medicine. Hospice and end-of-life care is the most obvious example of this phenomenon.
This site aims to draw together into one place the many ways Buddhist philosophy and practice can concretely influence and enhance the delivery of modern health care. In the areas of compassion training for medical students and residents, medical outreach into prisons, among the homeless, for refugees, dealing with difficult patients, addiction interventions, mindfulness in medicine practices and health care provider burnout prevention–these are just a few arenas where Buddhist ideas have the potential to radically effect change within medicine. The site will strive to provide relevant and timley resources in the form of readings, links, opportunities, teachings, conferences, etc, that will assist the health care practitioner to incorporate Buddhist ideas into their care of patients.
This is not a New Age pipe-dream quixotically applied to cutting edge medicine. Rather, it is a 2500 year old living repository of profound ideas that has the potential for remedying deep, chronic problems within our medical system. In fact, there is emerging evidence-based research that supports many of the practices brought together here.
Please imagine this site to be the center of a wheel with spokes radiating out into various areas of medicine, infusing them with the spirit of the dharma, hopefully making medicine a better discipline for us practitioners and most importantly, a better experience for our patients.
Hi Mark,
I received word of this site from a colleague at Children’s Hospital, seattle (Will Van Cleve, M.D.); I’m very happy to see this resource developing. I am connected with a local meditation center (Nalanda West, in Fremont) which is very interested in supporting programming that brings together these venerable “arts” (medicine and meditation). We have a number of physicians in our community as well as practitioners of Oriental Medicine – acupuncture in particular. If it appeals to you, or maybe recipients of your posts, please consider attending a public lecture with Ven. Pora Tulku Rinpoche at Nalanda West this coming weekend. The lecture is Friday night, 7:00 and will present aspects of the practice of Tibetan Medicine. He is also available for consultations Friday through Sunday. For those who have openness to other methodologies, this would be a low impact opportunity to meet a genuine master of the tradition and get a sense of how it’s practiced. (Pora Tulku lives in India and visits the US once or twice a year)
Ven Pora Tulku Rinpoche represents the fulfillment of the Tibetan ideal of a physician – integrating deep spirituality (Tibetan Buddhist) and extensive medical training.
I’m not a physician, but work closely with many pediatric doctors who care for and guide the families I serve on their palliative course. Thank you for initiating this conversation!
Best,
mark power
PS – you can see info about the Nalanda West lecture at http://www.nalandawest.org