Yoga Milestone—First CME-Approved Conference Supports Therapeutic Value

The Mountain Pose Medicine & Yoga Symposium took place in gorgeous Copper Mountain, Colorado August 22—26, 2012. The seminal gathering marked the first CME (continuing medical education) accredited program for yoga in the United States.

The annual Mountain Pose Medicine & Yoga Symposium is the brainchild of Satkirin Khalsa, MD, a longtime yoga instructor, integrative medicine physician and scientific program chair of the conference. Khalsa is deeply concerned about the sobering statistics surrounding physician health, burnout and suicide rates, which are twice that of the general public. Thus, the primary educational objective of the symposium is to bring practitioners together across disciplines to review the medical literature and provide sensible tools to address the causation of chronic stress, fatigue and burnout—essentially a Heal Thy Docs, Heal Thy Patients approach.

Yogis David Romanelli and Rebecca Woods presented lectures and group, simulation-based didactic yoga sessions for medical doctors, naturopaths, physical therapists and other allied health professionals. Romanelli and Woods’s lectures received full CME credit for their participation through the AAFP (American Association of Family Physicians), essentially ushering in the scientific recognition of the clinical therapeutic application and value of yoga.

Dr. Dean Ornish’s Spectrum Program, a set of lifestyle interventions scientifically proven to reverse heart disease—including yoga as a core intervention and now covered by Medicare and other payers—was examined and discussed at length.

Other faculty included: Sara Gottfried, MD, Joe Alcock, MD, James Weber, MD, Kimberly Williams, PhD, Siegfried Bleher, PhD and C.L. “Doc PJ” Perrinjaquet, MD, MPH . The full program can be found here. Interesting to note that Drs. Gottfried, William, Weber, Khalsa, Bleher and Perrinjaquet are also certified yoga instructors—a growing trend as more medical doctors are discovering yoga as an effective way to address personal stress management.

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