ADVANCING CLINICAL EXPERTISE IN INTEGRATIVE ONCOLOGY: An Introduction to the Integrative Oncology Working Group

January 25, 2023 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Registration required. Please register HERE

Description of Event: The Integrative Oncology Working Group is an international shared-learning forum and networking organization of specialists in the field, begun in 2020 and now numbering more than 85 members. During this event, we will talk with Dr. Manoj Reddy, IOWG’s founder and president, about the group’s genesis, goals, growth, and potential influence on the larger IO community, and his vision for the future of the field. Three distinguished IOWG colleagues from diverse backgrounds will join Dr. Reddy to offer their own perspectives and experiences. Following the panel’s presentations and discussion, the floor will be open for questions and comments from the audience.

You do not need to be an integrative oncology specialist to attend this event.  Any practitioners who either currently work with oncology patients or who would just like to learn more about integrative approaches to cancer treatment are welcome to join the meeting.

Speaker Bios:

Manoj Reddy, MD, a radiation and integrative oncologist currently practicing at the VA Medical Center in North Dallas, Texas, is the founder and president of the Integrative Oncology Working Group. Dr. Reddy received his medical education at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and did his internship and residency at the University of Texas, Galveston. Specializing in radiation oncology for the past 20 years, he has enjoyed a varied and distinguished career—in teaching, research, program supervision and oversight, leadership appointments by the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society, and both private and hospital-based practice. Along the way, he has garnered many awards and widespread recognition as one of the leading practitioners in his field. His ongoing pursuit of the best available evidence-based oncology care eventually led him to cast a wider net and explore integrative approaches to treatment. In 2016 he completed a two-year distance-learning fellowship in integrative medicine at the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona in Tucson. It was to carry this interest further that he founded the IOWG in 2020, with the goals of incorporating evidence-based complementary therapy into state-of-the-art conventional oncology and fostering dialogue about advances in the field among integrative practitioners worldwide.

Donald Abrams, MD, is an integrative oncologist at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of California San Francisco, and professor emeritus of medicine at UCSF. Dr. Abrams graduated from the Stanford University School of Medicine in 1977. Following a residency in internal medicine at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in San Francisco, he received a fellowship in Hematology-Oncology at UCSF in 1980 and subsequently became one of the original clinician-investigators to recognize many of the early AIDS-related conditions. While searching for effective methods of treating HIV, he conducted numerous clinical trials of many complementary as well as conventional therapies, including therapeutic touch, Traditional Chinese Medicine, medicinal mushrooms, medical cannabis, and distant healing. His interest in botanical therapies led him to complete a two-year integrative medicine fellowship at the University of Arizona in 2004. With Dr. Andrew Weil, the founder and director of the pioneering Arizona IM program, he later co-edited Integrative Oncology, a textbook first published in 2009 by Oxford University Press. Dr. Abrams is a past president of the Society for Integrative Oncology and a longtime member of the National Cancer Institute’s PDQ Integrative, Alternative and Complementary Therapies Editorial Board. In working to help patients live with and beyond cancer, his favored integrative approaches include nutrition, medicinal mushrooms, and TCM. Dr. Abrams has been an IOWG member since its inception.

Danna Park, MD, is an internist and pediatrician who practices integrative medicine, including oncology, at Mountain Integrative Medicine in Asheville, NC. She is board-certified in all three of her specialties. Dr. Park received her medical education at the Tufts University School of Medicine and then completed a combined residency in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, MA. She is a graduate of the Residential Fellowship in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona, and currently serves as a clinical mentor for others in the Integrative Medicine Fellowship. She holds a faculty position in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Medicine, frequently providing integrative medicine instruction and guidance to residents and medical students in the Mountain Area Health Education Center Family Practice and UNC School of Medicine Asheville programs. Dr. Park has a particular interest in healthcare-provider burnout and its impacts on provider health and patient care, and she does presentations and workshops on resilience training to address the issue for a variety of practitioners and medical trainees. In her capacity as director of the Asheville clinic, she does integrative medicine consultations for both adults and children with cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and many other internal medicine conditions, drawing on specialized trainings in such areas as integrative cancer care, mind-body medicine (including guided imagery), vitamins and supplements, and nutritional approaches to brain-based disorders. Dr. Park has been an IOWG member from the outset.

Kevin Brown, MD, is an integrative medicine physician and medical oncologist based in the Boulder, CO area.  Triple board-certified in medical oncology, hematology, and integrative medicine, he completed fellowship training in the first two disciplines at the University of Iowa, and then graduated from the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine fellowship program in the fall of 2017.  Most recently, he has worked as the lead integrative oncology physician for Kaiser Permanente Colorado.  While at Kaiser, he helped develop a multidisciplinary integrative oncology program that included in-person consultative visits as well as a monthly virtual group class on integrative medicine in cancer care.  Dr. Brown is a founding member of the Integrative Oncology Working Group.  He has been an integral part of the IOWG since its inception and has been instrumental in its rapid development over the past two years.   Later this year, he will be opening Spring Trail Integrative Medicine, a solo private practice, in Louisville, Colorado, where he will focus on consultative integrative care for oncology patients.