Duke Integrative Medicine – Wow, cool doctors!

Greetings from Durham, NC!

I kinda want to stay here for another month or two.

I’ve been at Duke Integrative Medicine for the past 7 days taking the Therapeutic Yoga for Seniors Training – and it’s been truly an amazing experience. This is not your average yoga training program – for those of you who’ve done those out of town, typically you go to a nice studio and learn stuff from yoga people – but then you’re on your own for food, accommodations etc.

But this training is taking place with yoga people AND Duke Medical professors at Duke’s IM facility – which is something like a zenned-out health spa, complete with an enormous crystal Tibetan singing bowl which invites you to ring it as you walk in. Some of the walls are papered with real tree bark, there’s both an exquisitely meditative meditation room and a stony zen contemplation garden. They have a labyrinth outside, just off of the patio and inside, a live bamboo-filled atrium waiting room – that would be, waiting for a massage or some kind of hydrotherapy or acupuncture, of course.

And then there’s the food. They provide lunch every day cooked by their very conscious food person – chef Kate (sorry I can’t find a link for her, but she’s definitely worth knowing about) – who makes dietary considerations for any of the merely 40 of us who request them. She does under 100 calorie things with chocolate which make me terribly skeptical that she really does any sort of calculations.

The level of expertise of the program’s instructors is humbling. Our main teachers, Carol Krucoff and Kimberly Carson have quite a bit of both yoga experience and western medical credentials. And the Duke professors they have brought in include some of the finest names in pain, arthritis, osteoporosis, diabetes, pulmonary health, opthamology, end of life care – it goes on and on. After 7 days of this my brain has hit the saturation point!

But tomorrow is the last day and I’ll be heading back home to Asheville with a heart full of gratitude for the wealth of wisdom and knowledge which has been imparted – if you are in the 55 plus age range, keep an eye out for an upcoming series which I’ll be doing as part of my research project for the program. I can’t wait to share what I’ve learned with you! They will be free but with limited space so you’ll need to sign up early.