On Human Flourishing

Dr. Robert Bonakdar is Director of Pain Management at the Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine in La Jolla, California and a member of the Scripps Green Hospital Pain Management Committee. He also serves as Assistant Clinical Professor (Voluntary) at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine. Dr. Bonakdar completed a fellowship in integrative medicine at Scripps Clinic, focusing...

Dr. Kent Bradley, former Chief Medical Officer with Safeway, Inc., joined the corporate grocery chain with a passion for instilling long-term health initiatives for employees. “I think increasingly that people value their health and companies need to align what they’re doing to meet them with what they value,” Bradley explained to Samueli Institute President and CEO Wayne Jonas, MD, in...

In the 1970s when Joe Pizzorno, ND, decided to pursue a career in naturopathic medicine his choice of training programs was limited. “There was only one school left in all of North America,” Pizzorno explained to Samueli Institute President and CEO Wayne Jonas, MD, in an interview for the Institute’s bi-weekly podcast on the future of healthcare. “When I enrolled...

Dr. Scott Shreve, Director of Hospice and Palliative Care at the Department of Veterans Affairs, joins Dr. Jonas for a conversation on the growing need for end-of-life care for veterans. “Roughly a little over 600,000 veterans died this past year, and not all of them are enrolled in the V.A.,” said Dr. Shreve. “Three percent of veterans die in V.A....

In a fast-paced society, being overwhelmed and stressed are often accepted as normal parts of life. But in doing so, what should be emotional cues become constraints that can have adverse affects on our health. Bob Duggan, an acupuncturist who co-founded the Traditional Acupuncture Institute in Laurel, Maryland, joins Dr. Jonas for a conversation about healing.  As Bob describes, the evolving...

In 2001, Dr. Aviad Haramati received NIH support to fund a broad educational initiative aimed at incorporating complementary, alternative (CAM) and integrative medicine into the medical curriculum at Georgetown University. The goal of the initiative is not to train practitioners of CAM, but rather to educate skillful, knowledgeable physicians who understand the role of CAM in healthcare and are capable...

Mary Jo Kreitzer is the founder and director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Spirituality & Healing, where she teaches and conducts research on optimal healing environments and mindfulness meditation. In this week’s episode of the podcast, Dr. Kreitzer talks to Dr. Jonas about optimal healing environments and their impact on both patients and practitioners.

Dr. Gail Christopher joins Dr. Wayne Jonas to discuss disparities in health care access. Dr. Christopher is vice president for policy and senior advisor at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan. In this role, she serves on the president’s cabinet that provides overall direction and leadership for the foundation and has expertise in the areas of health policy...

Our guest today is Sonia Rhodes, a national leader in designing customer and employee experiences in the challenging arena of health care. Sonia is the Chief Executive and Experience Officer at Sonia Rhodes Experience Design and prior to launching her consultancy, she led the charge to transform the healthcare experience for patients and caregivers at the largest integrated healthcare center...

“10,000 people turn 65 every day in this country, so the graying of America is happening right before our eyes.” Bill Novelli, former CEO of AARP, offers this sobering statistic during his conversation with Dr. Wayne Jonas. Now a professor of business at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University, Novelli has a very unique perspective of aging and...