For the fourth year in a row, Grand Valley State University's Autumn Health Forums will connect community members with health care experts for a series of talks. This year's series will focus on spirituality and health. The lectures in the series include:
Speaker: Michael J. Baime MD, clinical assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Topic: Meditation, Stress and the Brain
Details: Stress does more than just make us miserable. Stress plays a major role in determining whether we stay healthy and even whether we live or die. Baime will review some of the evidence that links stress with health and disease. This discussion will also explain how meditation techniques can undo stress and enhance well being.
Baime has taught mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques since 1983. He teaches mindfulness-based stress management and communication techniques to faculty and students at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He runs a system-wide stress management program for the University of Pennsylvania Health System. Baime has been included in Philadelphia Magazine's "Top Doctors" issue for seven consecutive years, including this year's "Top Doctors" for women issue.
Speaker: Mimi Kiser, RN, MPH, associate director, Interfaith Health Program, associate faculty for research, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University
Topic: Faith and Health: Transforming Communities
Details: Who is healthy? Who is not? Why? Kiser will provide a conceptual framework oriented towards public health to describe the relationship between faith and health at individual, congregational, and community levels. This will be the backdrop for a clearer vision of leadership action necessary to assure equal access to health and wholeness. Kiser has been with the Interfaith Health Program since 1993. The Interfaith Health Program (IHP), formerly of The Carter Center now at Rollins School of Public Health, works nationally and internationally to support the alignment of the strengths of the faith community with the best public health science. Mimi has focused on building the capacity of health groups to form collaborative relationships with the faith community, specifically through networks such as the American Public Health Association's Caucus on Public Health and the Faith Community, the Coalition for Healthier Cities and Communities, and the National Public Health Leadership Development Network.
Speaker: Harold G. Koenig, M.D., co-director and founder of the Center for The Study of Religion/Spirituality and Health at Duke University.
Topic: Spirituality and Health: What Does the Scientific Literature Say in 2005?
Details: Koenig is co-director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at Duke University Medical Center, and has published extensively in the fields of mental health, geriatrics, and religion. He will examine the historical relationship between religion and medicine, examining the origins of health care, hospitals, medicine and nursing. He will explore the research that has examined the relationship between religious involvement and mental health. He will propose a model of how religion may impact physical health through the mind-body mechanisms. He will examine the relationship between religion and physical health, immune functioning, cardiovascular functioning, and survival. He will examine what these findings mean for clinicians and how this might be applied to clinical practice in a sensitive and appropriate manner. Finally, he will discuss that the relationship between religion and medicine means for the future of health care in developed and underdeveloped countries, particularly the growing aging population and their health care needs.
Speaker: Michael Gazzaniga, Dartomouth College's David T. McLaughlin Distinguished Professor, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience
Topic: The Ethical Brain and the State of Neuroscience in 2005
Details: Dr. Gazzaniga discusses how modern brain science offers clues to questions about the relationship of ethics and genetics, and suggests our brains are powerful adaptive systems that, working in a social context, allow for all the human values we hold important.
Gazzaniga is the David T. McLaughlin Distinguished University Professor and Director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Dartmouth College. He is the author of "The Ethical Brain." He has served on the President's Council on Bioethics since 2001, is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is president-elect of the American Psychological Society. Many consider him the father of cognitive neuroscience.
The Autumn Health Forums are a series of discussions that focus attention on health care topics of interest to both the general public and health care professionals. The forums are intended to provide an informative, interesting and sometimes provocative way to explore some of the leading health care issues of the day. An informative question-and-answer session follows each session.
The forums are from noon to 1 p.m. in the DeVos Center's Loosemore Auditorium on Grand Valley's Pew Grand Rapids Campus. The forums are free and open to the public, but participants are asked to RSVP.
The forums are hosted by Grand Rapids Medical Education and Research Center for Health Professions and Grand Valley State University Continuing Education. They are sponsored by Saint Mary's Mercy Medical Center and Spectrum Health.
For more information or to RSVP, visit www.gvsu.edu/ahf on the Web or call (800) 690-0314 or (616) 331-7180.
