Being in attendance: Where medicine and meditation merge

In a hospital setting, physicians are often called “attendings.” One expert in the merging of meditation and medicine recently spoke to physicians about the importance of making that word matter by being in attendance at each moment of the day to heal and maintain your own well-being so that you can be a better healer for your patients. At the start of a session at the International Conference on Physician Health in Boston, Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, professor of medicine emeritus and creator of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, led attendees in a mindfulness activity from the first moment to “drop in on your own presence in your mind.”“Befriend the present moment, by befriending the feeling and the sensations of the breath moving in and out of your body, because it’s always here,” he said. “Without any contrivance, you’re not forcing anything to happen, you’re simply tuning in to what’s already happening.”“You’re not trying to achieve any special feeling,” he said, “you’re simply attending … the present moment is really the only moment we are ever inhabiting.” Focusing on joy in practice, the conference brought together the best minds around the globe with attendees and presenters from the United Kingdom, Norway, New Zealand, Canada and the U.S., just to name a few.“It’s not merely work-life balance, which s...
Source: AMA Wire - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Source Type: news