"It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount of love that is put into them that matters. "
- Mother Teresa         

MABUHAY

Welcome to the blogsite  which I maintain regarding continuing Wellness advocacy and training activites within and outside the De La Salle Health Sciences Institute's  Center for Complementary and Integrative Medicine  (CIM) formerly known as the Center for Indigenous Medicine ; it also served as a blog of my three-year activities as Chair of CIM, from May 2006 - May 2009, and will continue to informally and unofficially report on the expansion activities of CIM under the new leadership through this blogsite as well as through the special Livejournal websites devoted to various CIM programs listed below. The Official Homepage of the CENTER FOR COMPLEMENTARY AND INTEGRATIVE MEDICINE can be reached through this link. This blog also serves as a record of the evolving Wellness Program of the HRD of DLS-HSI.

What CIM is: CIM is an education, training,  research and complementary and alternative health care service unit under the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research of the De La Salle Health Sciences  Institute.  

Brief History: The CIM was established in the mid-nineties alongside the Clinical Epidemiology Unit , the Basic Research Unit, the Tuberculosis Research Unit, and the Bioavailability Unit, with the original aim of promoting effective and safe methods and approaches of traditional medicine.

  CIM's establishment was in response to a challenge by then DOH Secretary Dr. Jaime Galvez-Tan for any university willing to establish an academic center on traditional and alternative health care which will be assisted with seed money from the DOH. The late Bro. Andrew Gonzalez took up the challenge, and as De La Salle University system president encouraged CIM's establishment, with additional seed capital raised by Bro. Gonzalez.

  Since then, it has funded and supported research projects in herbal medicine, established a herbal medicine garden,  maintaining an acupuncture clinic and had given training on the basic principles and practice of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine. It has also sponsored lectures on Eastern schools of relaxation and exercise therapeutics. Through the years, it has built a library of books and videos on complementary and alternative medicine. Since its establishment, it has had three previous unit heads, namely Dr. Ces Acuin and Dr. Josephine Alayon, (including myself) who were then both faculty members of the Department of Family and Community Medicine, and myself (from the Department of Physiology). The Center maintains a rudimentary electronic database of the 80+ medicinal plants in the CIM Herbal Medicine Garden (established in the mid-nineties)  inside the campus.

I took over as Chair ,( Dr. Dante G. Simbulan, Jr. as a faculty member of the Department of Physiology, College of Medicine) last May 15, 2006 and  ended my three-year stint as CIM chair last May 30, 2009. For the past three years, with limited funds, I focused on the development of hatha yoga and therapeutic massage techniques as tools for stress management, and organizing introductory workshops and yoga classes inside and outside the campus, to expand the array of services and modalities available at CIM. These are low-cost complementary preventive health care modalities widely popular in many integrative medicine centers overseas which have also incorporated gentle yoga training for patients.

I will now devote my time on the work of CIM's Mind-Body Studies Section, with the Yoga Program as the lead project. The Yoga program encompasses mindful nutrition, as well as mindful exercises which are both relaxing as well as supportive of cardiovascular and respiratory fitness, while increasing muscle strength, bone density, flexibilility and increasing range of motion, and raising the immune response in the long run. Mindful nutrition and exercises in yoga training can also provide the gateway for mindful living. Its  immediate effect is stress reduction. The past three years gave me the opportunity to deepen my study of stress and relaxation physiology, with the hope of launching new research initiatives in this area with the remaining years of my academic life.

Dr. Rita Alvero (Director for Research Support and Extension of the Research Division), has invited Dr. Susan Balingit to be the next head of CIM.  The new, incoming fulltime CIM chair is a clinician of integrative medicine, who is now entrusted with the challenge of "fully exploring and developing the multitude of alternative treatment modalities and wellness programs" in the coming three years (2009 - 2011) as the development of the field of complementary and integrative medicine becomes a pressing need to address the integrated health needs of the people.

The Center is currently understaffed and underfunded, and is in need of more faculty members and external consultants who would like to volunteer their efforts towards the study and safe practice of effective complementary and alternative healing modalities. 

Visiting and Local Consultants: Dr. Joan Javellana-Ottao has rejoined CIM in 2008 to head the  Acupuncture Clinic as Visiting Consultant/ Medical Acupuncturist.  Dr. Frederick Hipol also treats his orthopaedic patients for symptomatic pain management. Dr. Deo Panganiban of the Department of Pharmacology assists  CIM in its herbal medicine program, together with the faculty and Residents of the Department of Family and Community Medicine with some of their research projects. Dr. Estrellita Gonzaga who has assisted CIM projects in the past, is also the contact person in charge of Alternative Nutrition. Dr. Arsenio Mondala-Basoc also joined the acupuncture clinic last year. Dr. Rita Alvero, the current CIM chair from June 2009 is also currently involved in Macrobiotics, helping start the GREEN OPTIONS restaurant project at the 2nd floor of the Angelo King Medical Research Center. I (Dr. Dante G. Simbulan, Jr.) am now personally in charge of the Mind-Body Studies Section, a program formally started in 2004 under Dr. Alayon.

Organizational chart: Under the revised organizational chart of the De La Salle Health Sciences Institute, the  Research Division is under the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research  headed by Dr. Melchor Frias IV.  The CIM Chair immediately falls under a newly formed position, the Director for Research Support and Extension, currently Dr. Rita Alvero, who reports directly to the Vice Chancellor for Research and the Research Council.


In Peace,

DANTE G. SIMBULAN, JR., PhD
Professor, Department of Physiology, College of Medicine
DE LA SALLE HEALTH SCIENCES INSTITUTE
Certified Yoga Teacher, and Officer-in-Charge of Mind-Body Studies Section of CIM
former CIM Chair (May 15,  2006 - May 31, 2009)
See: My 3 Year Annual Reports of the CIM Chair, May 2006 - May 2009
The Annual Reports are basically a synopsis of all the records in this website when I was CIM chair.


BELOW IS AN OUTLINE OF THE BROAD FIELD OF COMPLEMENTARY AND INTEGRATIVE MEDICINE around the world and the existing projects of CIM.
 

For more information on different target areas of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) practices and research, go to the following links from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) of the U.S. National Institutes of Health :

1. Mind-Body Medicine (download pdf file, click here)
2. Energy Medicine (download pdf file, click here)
3. Manipulative and Body-Based Practices (download pdf file, click here)
4. Biologically-Based Practices (download pdf file, click here)
5. Whole Healing Systems (download pdf file, click here)

    For general  information on CIM activities, you can email our Staff Assistant Ms. Emie Guimary at cimresearch@yahoo.com, or call  046-416-0226 local 181 (CIM) or local 191 (Research Division secretariat).

    For specific information on the Mind-Body Studies Program (Yoga training project), you can email me  (Dr. Dante G. Simbulan, Jr.)  at dantejr@gmail.com or call 046-416-0226 local 185 (Physiology Department). 

Kaginhawahan LiveJournal has also links to CIM's LiveJournals in the following areas:

1. Mind/Body Fitness 
2. Medicinal Plants Garden
3. Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine (under construction)
4. Massage Therapy (under construction)
5. Program on Healthy Living and Integrative Nutrition (under construction)

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