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WORK TITLE: The Compassionate Connection
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://davidrakel.com/
CITY: Albuquerque
STATE: NM
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Married.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Integrative medical practitioner. Rural private practice, Driggs, ID, 1994-99; University of Arizona Health Sciences Center, resident fellowship, 1999-2001; University of Wisconsin Integrative Medicine program, founder and director, 2001-17; University of New Mexico Medical School, Albuquerque, NM, Department of Family & Community Medicine, professor and chair.
MEMBER:Gold Humanism Honor Society.
AWARDS:Baldwin E. Lloyd Clinical Teacher Award; University of Wisconsin Department of Family Medicine Faculty Excellence Award, Marc Hansen Lecture Award; Society of Teachers of Family Medicine Resident Teacher-of-the-Year Award; American Academy of Family Physicians President’s Award; Leonard Tow Award for Compassionate Care; New Mexico Academy of Family Physicians President’s Award; Integrative Medicine, editor; Primary Care on Practice Update, editor-in-chief.
WRITINGS
Founder and editor of Integrative Medicine, coeditor of Textbook of Family Medicine, coeditor of Conn’s Current Therapy, published annually, and editor-in-chief of Primary Care on Practice Update.
SIDELIGHTS
Integrative medical practitioner David Rakel, MD is professor and chair of the Department of Family & Community Medicine at the University of New Mexico Medical School in Albuquerque. He started his rural private practice in Driggs, Idaho, then completed a two-year residential fellowship in integrative medicine at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center in 2001. He is the founder and director of the University of Wisconsin Integrative Medicine program. In his editorial work, Rakel is founder and editor of Integrative Medicine, coeditor of Textbook of Family Medicine, coeditor of Conn’s Current Therapy published annually, and editor-in-chief of Primary Care on Practice Update. He has spent thirty years publishing studies in medicine, sociology, psychology, meditation, and neuroscience.
In 2018, Rakel published The Compassionate Connection: The Healing Power of Empathy and Mindful Listening. Awarded the Leonard Tow Award for Compassionate Care, Rakel explores how human connection and strengthening bonds with others play important roles in emotional and physical healing. In the introduction of the book, Rakel explained that caregivers are the most effective when they use the low-tech tool of human connection. These connections include between doctor and patient, husband and wife, parent and child, or boss and employee. When bodies and minds are connected, we have a higher capacity to feel beauty, awe, and compassion, which has been shown to improve health and well-being. Since we’re wired for cooperation, giving, altruism, and empathy, the key is to live with clarity, wisdom, and good health.
Rakel explains the value of a circle of compassion between health professionals, family caregivers, and patients. In an article by David Steinberg in the Albuquerque Journal Online, Rakel advocated for a move away from traditional linear treatment. “Linear treatment, he writes, ‘gives patients what clinicians know and pulls them into caregivers’ beliefs’ whereas circular healing expands the patient’s understanding of their illness by exploring their connection to themselves, which leads to an authentic healing action.”
Despite some discussion on topics like mirror neurons, neuroplasticity, and epigenetics that may be too complicated for some readers, “Readers open to positive change will welcome this guidebook and apply the book’s mindfulness meditations offered in an appendix. A relevant, necessary reminder about the power of kindness and good intentions,” according to a Kirkus Reviews contributor. Online at Shelf Awareness, a reviewer remarked: “The Compassionate Connection, full of solid advice backed by strong research, may be the tool to help us build better relationships and healthier lives.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2018, review of The Compassionate Connection: The Healing Power of Empathy and Mindful Listening.
ONLINE
Albuquerque Journal Online, https://www.abqjournal.com/ (April 29, 2018), David Steinberg, “Doctor Offers a Strategy for Healing the Body, Soul and Possibly Our Planet.”
Shelf Awareness, http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ (May 11, 2018), review of The Compassionate Connection.
David Rakel,MD was the founder and director of the University of Wisconsin Integrative Medicine program and is now Professor and Chair of the Department of Family & Community Medicine at the University of New Mexico Medical School in Albuquerque, NM. For more information, visit his website at davidrakel.com or elsevierauthors.com/davidrakel
About David Rakel
I started my career near the Teton Mountains in Driggs, Idaho where I was in rural private practice for five years (1994-1999). This is where my patients taught me about the importance of going deeper into the context of one’s life to uncover the path towards health. I then wanted to learn more about this mind-body connection and subsequently completed a two-year residential fellowship in integrative medicine at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center (1999-2001).
Wanting to start an Integrative Medicine program at a medical school, my family and I were lucky enough to have an opportunity at the University of Wisconsin (UW) in Madison. There I was able to grow and direct the UW Health Integrative Medicine Program for 16 years (2001-2017). During this time, I was promoted to a tenured professor in the department on family medicine at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.
In 2017, my wife and I moved to Albuquerque, NM where I am now the Professor and Chair of the Department of Family & Community Medicine at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. It is an honor to be able to work with at an institution with dedicated faculty and staff that have a core mission to facilitate the health of all humans despite their ability to pay. This can make supporting salaries a challenge, but we all sleep good at night!
A core goal at the University of New Mexico is to create an skill in saludogenesis (the genesis of health) to balance our current expertise in pathogenesis (the genesis of disease and suffering). The origins of health require a different focus which I hope, The Compassionate Connection provides insight.
Editorial Work
Founder and editor: Integrative Medicine (1st through 4th editions)
Co-editor: Textbook of Family Medicine (8th and 9th editions)
Co-editor: Conn’s Current Therapy (published annually)
Editor-in-chief: Primary Care on PracticeUpdate
Awards
Baldwin E. Lloyd Clinical Teacher Award
The UW Department of Family Medicine Faculty Excellence Award
The UW Department of Family Medicine Marc Hansen Lecture Award
The Society of Teachers of Family Medicine Resident Teacher-of-the-Year Award
University of New Mexico Health System, Distinguished Keynote Speaker Award
The American Academy of Family Physicians President’s Award
The Leonard Tow Award for Compassionate Care
Accepted into the Gold Humanism Honor Society
President’s Award, New Mexico Academy of Family Physicians
Doctor offers a strategy for healing the body, soul and possibly our planet
By David Steinberg / For The Journal
Sunday, April 29th, 2018 at 12:02am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Dr. David Rakel of Albuquerque has written what you might call a prescription for the planet. It’s not a script on a slip of paper for a drug to combat the symptoms of a particular malady. It’s not a suggestion for an over-the-counter herb.
Dr. David Rakel discusses, signs “The Compassionate Connection — The Healing Power of Empathy and Mindful Listening” at 3 p.m. Saturday, May 5, at Bookworks, 4022 Rio Grande NW.
The prescription recommends combining mind, body and spirit to enhance well-being.
“I have discovered that people become the most effective caregivers when they use the vital yet surprisingly low-tech tool of human connection,” Rakel wrote in the introduction to his new book “The Compassionate Connection – The Healing Power of Empathy and Mindful Listening.”
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Studies now show that humans can use their “very presence to promote health in those who are ailing and guide them on a path toward recovery,” he added.
In the book, Rakel explains the value of compassion for health professionals, family caregivers and patients based on many published studies in medicine, sociology, psychology, meditation and neuroscience as well as on his own clinical experience and research.
“My book comes out of research in the medical field but the teachings can help in any profession, whether you’re managing people, or you’re a parent,” he said in a phone interview. “In the medical profession we are trying to find self-healing mechanisms in every human being.”
Ravel is currently professor and chair of the University of New Mexico Medical School’s Department of Family and Community Medicine. He served as one of two physicians at a 14-bed rural hospital in Idaho and was the founding director of the University of Wisconsin’s Integrative Medicine program.
The key first step for any health professional in harnessing the power of compassion is self-reflection, Rakel said, because it helps that professional to be better prepared to facilitate healing in others.
“It’s hard to sit with another human being in a meaningful way if they are suffering more than we are,” Rakel said.
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Rakel argues that caregivers and patients can better come to grips with illness through a concept he calls circular healing, rather than from the traditional practice of linear treatment.
Linear treatment, he writes, “gives patients what clinicians know and pulls them into caregivers’ beliefs” whereas circular healing expands the patient’s understanding of their illness by exploring their connection to themselves, which leads to an authentic healing action.”
If patients take time to listen to their thoughts and feelings they’ll be wiser for it, Rakel writes. In other words, use their own built-in mechanism of mindful listening.
Sure, there are obstacles to authentic patient healing. One is clinician and family caregiver burnout, including what he terms “empathy distress.” Rakel writes that he himself has withdrawn from patients when he’s emotionally drained.
Technology is another obstacle. As society’s main mode of communication, technology blocks the critical need for face-to-face communication, he said.
Doctors are spending twice as much time with an inanimate object – a computer – than with patients, Rakel noted. That means less time to educate patients about the valuable connected concepts of compassion, empathy and mindful listening.
UNM Health System, the clinical arm of UNM Health Sciences Center, has established an internal process called “Mission: Excellence” that aligns with ideas in his book, he said.
“The first step (of Mission: Excellence) is about learning how to provide compassionate, kind care with everyone we are privileged to serve and care for,” Rakel said. “We hope to translate it to better patient engagement for faculty and staff to form a trusting relationship with our patients.”
Rakel, David: THE COMPASSIONATE CONNECTION
Kirkus Reviews. (Feb. 15, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Rakel, David THE COMPASSIONATE CONNECTION Norton (Adult Nonfiction) $25.95 4, 17 ISBN: 978-0-393-24774-9
A family and integrative medicine practitioner extols the universal healing power of kindness and mutual respect.
Rakel (Chair, Family and Community Medicine/Univ. of New Mexico; Integrative Medicine, 2002) explores the hot-button topic of empathy in everyday life. Using clinical anecdotes and drawing on 30 years of published sociology, psychology, meditative, and neuroscientific studies to support his theories and recommendations, the author promotes the synergistic two-way street of helping others while receiving in return the soul-nourishing emotional and physical benefits. "The human brain is actually wired for cooperation and giving," he writes. "But we're not always good at it." Though many often bungle it, Rakel clearly believes everyone has the capacity to promote, cultivate, and boost health, healing, and "positive contagion" by making a lasting human and mind-body connection with others. This involves refocusing energy and attention more toward improving our listening skills and on being present in moments of personal interaction. The author acknowledges that technological advances in medicine and social networking have robbed our culture of many avenues and opportunities to establish these connections, but he notes that it's up to us to do the work of releasing everyday biases, creating trustworthy bonds with others, and propagating mindfulness. While a lucidly presented, proactive approach to the benefits of human interactions, Rakel's two-part guide has the potential to confuse his target audience with overly scientific jargon. Sections on mirror neurons, neuroplasticity, and epigenetics may be too complex for general readers eager for life guidance. Conversely, chapters on caregiver burnout, nonverbal communication, and personal authenticity will be easily understood and will ring true to many with an open mind and a willingness to try. In furthering the agenda of altruism and empathy, Rakel believes a more considerate world is indeed possible. Readers open to positive change will welcome this guidebook and apply the book's mindfulness meditations offered in an appendix.
A relevant, necessary reminder about the power of kindness and good intentions.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Rakel, David: THE COMPASSIONATE CONNECTION." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A527248123/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=5979569c. Accessed 17 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A527248123
The Compassionate Connection: The Healing Power of Empathy and Mindful Listening
by David Rakel
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Dr. David Rakel, a family and integrative health practitioner, combines recent scientific data and medical information with personal stories from many of his patients to show how being compassionate, engaging in empathic listening and having strong relationships are vital to one's well-being and overall health.
Neuroscience has identified that humans have the ability to feel another's pain simply through observation. This "innate and nearly limitless capacity for caring and compassion" has been relegated to a back burner at times, though, in this technology age. The lack of face-to-face interactions and the rapid-fire exchanges we all engage in digitally have hindered our ability to deeply connect with each other.
Rakel discusses how attentive listening--where one truly listens, instead of half-listening while formulating an answer or thinking of a similar situation to relate back to the speaker--is vital to relationships. At times in scientific language, he discusses the neuroplasticity of the brain, which enables us to change and to learn new things, how mirror neurons work and the effects of oxytocin on the body, all leading to better health. The role of caregivers and doctors who treat patients empathetically, how biases affect an individual and interpreting body language are also deftly covered.
In an time when violence, prejudice and negativity seem to fill the news and our surroundings, The Compassionate Connection, full of solid advice backed by strong research, may be the tool to help us build better relationships and healthier lives. --Lee E. Cart, freelance writer and book reviewer
Discover: A physician shares tips and techniques on how to build better relationships and have healthier lives.