Keynote Speakers

Dr David Reilly FRCP, MRCGP, FFHom is currently The Scottish Government’s National Clinical Lead for Integrative Care; Consultant Physician, The Centre for Integrative Care, Glasgow Homoeopathic Hospital; Honorary Senior Lecturer, Glasgow University; Visiting Professor of Medicine, University of Maryland; faculty member at Harvard Medical School, USA; Director AdHominem Charity, a medical charity.

Dr David Reilly says he became a doctor: "... to combine my head and my heart in helping people." Training as a physician and GP, on route he evaluated aspects of complementary medicine (including RCTs of homoeopathy) and mind-body medicine. He has wondered about better ways of approaching medicine and human caring that emphasise the innate healing capacity in people, the factors that modify the healing response, and their interaction in the therapeutic encounter and relationship – ideas adopted as the core of The Fifth Wave document exploring future Public Health in Scotland.

Dr David Reilly is a clinician, teacher and researcher. He says he is: "... exploring how knowledge from the study of healing process and wellness enhancement might be scaled up: eg: in one-to-one relationships; in group work - like The WEL programme; in integrative models of care; in healing environments; and cultural and national development."

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Dr. Briggs received her A.B. cum laude in biology from Harvard-Radcliffe College and her M.D. from Harvard Medical School. She completed her residency training in internal medicine and nephrology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, followed by a research fellowship in physiology at Yale School of Medicine.

She was a professor of internal medicine and physiology at the University of Michigan from 1993 to 1997. From 1997 to 2006 she was director of the Division of Kidney, Urologic, and Hematologic Diseases in the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. From 2006 until her NCCAM appointment, she was senior scientific officer at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), Bethesda, Maryland.

Dr. Briggs has published more than 125 research articles and is on the editorial boards of numerous journals. She is an elected member of the American Association of Physicians and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is also a recipient of the Volhard Prize of the German Nephrological Society. Her research interests include the renin-angiotensin system (a hormone system that helps regulate blood pressure and the amount of fluid in the blood), diabetic nephropathy (kidney disease caused by diabetes), and the effect of antioxidants in kidney disease.

Professor of medical physiology, University of Tromsø, Norway,1975-2009.

Professor emeritus, University of Tromsø, 2009- .

Dean of Medical Faculty, University of Tromsø, 1983-86.

President of University of Tromsø, 1989-95.

Chairman, National commission on higher education in Norway, 1998-2000.

Chairman of Board of Centre for Peace Studies, University of Tromsø 2002- .

Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize Committee, 2003-2008.

Reaearch area: heart diseases.

Area of interest: combining health and peace education.

As founder and director of the Center for Spirituality and Healing, Dr. Mary Jo Kreitzer brings more than 20 years of leadership and expertise to the field of integrative health and medicine. She was the principal investigator of a $1.6 million National Institutes of Health (NCCAM) education grant and a Fetzer Institute funded evaluation of the Inner Life of Healers Program and the co-PI of a five year $2.1 million NIH (NINR) clinical trial of mindfulness meditation with solid organ transplant patients. She is currently the co-PI of a clinical trial funded by BlueCross/Blue Shield Minnesota on the impact of an integrated residential treatment program on women with eating disorders, the co-PI of an NIH NCCAM R21 grant on mind/body interventions for caregivers of Alzheimer’s patients and is the co-investigator of a clinical trial comparing mindfulness meditation with pharmacotherapy for people with chronic insomnia. She is also the co-PI of a newly funded NCCAM R25 grant focused on integrating research in a CAM educational institution. In addition to her administrative responsibilities in the Center for Spirituality and Healing, Mary Jo teaches a course on optimal healing environments in the graduate minor in complementary therapies and healing practices and is a tenured professor in the School of Nursing where she is co-director of the doctorate in nursing practice (DNP) program in integrative health and healing. From 2004-2007, she served as the vice-chair of the Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine. In 2008, she was named by Minnesota Physician as one of the 100 most influential health care leaders in the state. In 2009, she testified at a US Senate hearing titled “Integrative Health: Pathway to Health Reform” as well as the Institute of Medicine Summit titled “Integrative Medicine and the Health of the Public”. Dr. Kreitzer earned her doctoral degree in health services research and her masters and bachelor’s degrees in nursing.

Dr. Schaible is a researcher and teacher of Physiology. As a researcher he started originally with investigations into the neuronal mechanisms of joint pain. He was one of the first to address the plasticity of the nociceptive system during inflammation. More recently he has also studied the influences of the nervous system on the inflammatory process in the joint. He believes that the nervous system may take an active part in the progression of disease because the actions of the immune system and the nervous system are highly interactive. In his opinion the understanding of a disease must be interdisciplinary and integrative allowing views from various points of view. He believes physiological studies are useful for the understanding of both the disease process in itself as well as the accompanying symptoms and also for the understanding of treatment alternatives, including complementary medicine. As a Professor he teaches all fields of physiology to students of medicine, dental medicine and pharmacy, and he contributes to pain courses for doctors of all disciplines.

Åke Wennmalm is a physician and specialist in clinical physiology. He had his basic and specialist education at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.

Between 1986 and 1995 he was professor in Clinical Physiology at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Göteborg. After the return to Stockholm he was head of the clinical laboratories in Stockholm County Council and during this period he also became increasingly interested in the link between human health and the environment. Between 2000 and 2009 he was head of environmental business/environmental director at Stockholm County Council, which is the organisation providing all public health care and public transportation in the greater Stockholm region. In this position he established environmental programs for the organisation with clear quantitative environmental targets, which were anually followed up. Climate change and chemical pollution were the targets primarily in focus during this work. Climate change was counteracted by introduction of fossile-free fuels in public transportation of people and goods, and by introduction of the world's first equipment for destruction of dinitrous oxide (l"laughing gas") outlets from delivery wards in the region's hospitals. Chemical pollution was counteracted by systematic identification, registration and elimination of chemicals used in the various activities in the county council, by introduction of environmental classification of pharmaceuticals and by systematic discussions of improvement of all aspects of pharmaceutical management with national and EU authorities, pharmaceutical producers, prescribers and water authorities. Åke Wennmalm retired from his position as environmental director by the end of 2009 and is currently holding a position as senior advisor in environmental issues in Stockholm County Council. Åke Wennmalm has published more than 200 scientific papers in clinical physiology, experimental cardiology and environmental pharmacology.