In response to John Killacky’s integrative health care commentary:

Flash back to a conference/workshop that was held about five years ago, attended by Dr. Mark Levine (Vermont’s health commissioner) and concerned participants from all corners of our state, presenting “complementary” and “alternative” modalities and practices in the integrative health care milieu. 

Dr. Janet Kahn and I hosted the meeting, but it was really built by her incredible team from UVM. We presented all the pieces that ultimately built the program that John is so richly benefitting from. Dr. Kahn is an amazing person, and I wish I could remember the names of all the others, but Robert Davis and his groundbreaking paper on acupuncture, and Cara Feldman Hunt were key players.

We presented all the modalities that could be of benefit to the health of our state in a comprehensive and inclusive manner, and it seemed that everyone felt enriched by the day. I knew it was a success when the reps from Blue Cross and Medicare/Medicaid huddled together at the conclusion to discuss how to pay.

Dr. Kahn and others put together the program that John benefits from, and it should be the model for the entire state, and country. I was involved as a rep from Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital and the Northeast Kingdom, but was really just a truck driver who got involved in these modalities as a response to my daughter’s opioid use disorder in 1990. 

Janet was the ultimate academician and medical expert, and I was the compassionate truck driver. Go figure! But if you would like to look further, take a look at HeartMath, a group that made a breakthrough in heart/brain coherence due to a seminal observation by an auto mechanic who was part of a multidisciplinary team of researchers. We are all one.

Stephen Kline

St. Johnsbury