Minneapolis

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For more information concerning AHMA activities in Minnesota, please contact chapter President, Bill Manahan, M.D. at  MinnesotaChapter@holisticmedicine.org.

A Short History of the AHMA Minnesota Branch
by Bill Manahan, MD

A group of holistic practitioners from Minnesota first met in 1989. Present were four physicians, 12 nurses, three physical therapists, three medical students, two psychologists, and one naturopath. All of us were attempting to bring together practitioners who held similar values and were interested in expanding our basic allopathic knowledge. We met every three to four months either on a Saturday morning (9:00am to noon) or occasionally for an entire weekend retreat. There was a three-year hiatus in the late nineties, but since 2000, we have been meeting regularly. We just had our 54th meeting in January, 2011.

There are three goals for why we meet:

1. To connect with other practitioners who have a similar vision of what healthcare can be and to spend some time with “members of our tribe.”
2. To meet and connect with other practitioners so as to develop a broad referral base for when our patients need complementary and alternative therapies.
3. To become better educated regarding integrative holistic medicine.

An important part of every meeting is the first hour in which everyone tells a bit about what they do and one thing that is exciting them about their professional life. There is then an educational program for the remainder of the morning. These past few years, the educational topics covered include a wide range of diagnosis and treatment options for such things as celiac disease, autism, vitamin D deficiency, depression, and Lyme disease. Other interesting topics covered included energy medicine, the Enneagram, homeopathy for the flu, intuition, and Sufi Spiritual Healing.

At the present time, there are 310 members in the group with 190 of them MD’s or DO’s and the remainder being nurses, psychologists, dentists, naturopaths, physical therapists, chiropractors, health coaches, dieticians, and others.

There are no dues and, until the last three years, most meetings were free. We always met in homes but as the size of the group increased to having around 70 people at each meeting, it became necessary to rent space. So a charge is now made of about $25 for the morning’s events.

Bill Manahan and Carolyn Torkelson have been co-chairing the group these past 11 years with Bill planning the meetings and Carolyn managing the website (www.holisticphysicians.info). I would encourage AHMA members from other states to organize a local chapter and bring together those practitioners interested in holistic medicine. I believe it is good both for the practitioners and for our patients.

Bill Manahan
 billmanahan@msn.com

Bill Manahan's bio