Newly Committed to Health!

Last summer I had the good fortune to be introduced to Dr. Dean Ornish, a cardiologist in California who is dedicated to preventive medicine. He has changed my life, and the lives of many of my friends. I really want to sit down and write him a letter about how through his research and work, I have a much better idea of what it is I want to do with my research and work. And how wonderful it is that even though he is trained in allopathic medicine, he is still using very natural healing methods to treat all sorts of ailments.

So, what I want to do is basically teach people who live in low income settings to eat well, exercise and manage stress. So many people focus on having money as a way to bring health, but the reality for a lot of people in my community in the US and worldwide, is that they don't have much money, and may never have much. Instead of just telling them to either get more money or never be healthy, I would like to teach them to use the few resources they DO have to make healthier choices, and to really change their priorities when it comes to how they use their resources whether it be their time, energy, money, etc. It's something I've struggled with and am still learning, so my patients can teach me and we can improve together.

We want to start this work even before we graduate with families in Cuba, and have already started formative research to do that. We are currently planning, organizing and looking for support with the project we would like to start in the Spring 2014. If anyone has any interesting documentaries, books, articles, info, funding sources, etc, they would like to share, please let me know!

Preventive Medicine Research Institute