Lectures to address
holistic cancer care

Despite scientific advances in cancer diagnosis and treatment, millions of patients and their loved ones are longing for a system of care more holistic and sensitive to their needs, says oncologist Jeremy Geffen.

As evidence, they are going outside the mainstream medical system and spending billions of dollars out of pocket for services and care they're not finding in the conventional system, the pioneer in integrative medicine pointed out in a telephone interview from Boulder, Colo.

"Our job is to find a way to creatively and responsibly meet these needs within the context of modern medicine," said Geffen, who will be the first speaker in a Hawaii Cancer Lecture series starting tomorrow in Imin Hall, East-West Center.

Described as an "oncologist of the future," Geffen will give a public talk from 9 to 11:30 a.m. about "The Seven Levels of Healing: A Body, Mind, Heart and Spirit Approach to Health and Living in the 21st Century."

From 2 to 4:30 p.m., he will discuss "The Journey Through Cancer: Honoring and Caring for the Whole Person."

His morning talk is free to the public; the afternoon lecture is free for cancer patients and families and $35 for health professionals, with continuing education credits available.

Other cancer experts will be scheduled for lectures through next May by the series sponsors, The Turning Point Cancer Center, University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine and Hawaii Center for Attitudinal Healing.

Drawing on his spiritual studies, medical training and father's agonizing death from cancer, Geffen founded the Geffen Cancer Center and Research Institute in Vero Beach, Fla., in 1994, and directed it until 2003. It was known for a Seven Levels of Healing program integrating state-of-the-art conventional cancer treatments with complementary therapies.

Since closing his practice, he has traveled throughout the world as a consultant on holistic cancer care and written a number of articles. He is the author of "The Journey Through Cancer: An Oncologist's 7 Level Program for Healing and Transforming the Whole Person."

Cancer "often affects the mind, the heart and the spirit of patients and their loved ones as deeply, if not more deeply, than it affects the physical body ... ," Geffen said.

"We now have an opportunity, and I believe an obligation as physicians and healers, to honor and care for all dimensions of patients and loved ones on their journey through cancer with equal skill and integrity."

About 5,000 Hawaii residents are diagnosed with cancer annually, said Laura Crites, who founded the Turning Point Cancer Center about a year ago after her mother and brother died of cancer.

She organized the lecture series after learning that 70 percent of cancer patients seek complementary treatments.

They don't understand how the treatments might help or hurt them and they don't tell their doctors, she said. Doctors also aren't informed about how integrative therapies can support their treatments, she said.

The lecture series was planned to educate health professionals about how complimentary therapies can be integrated into cancer prevention and treatment plans and to help the public understand the importance of a healthy lifestyle to prevent cancer, she said.