MIND-BODY
Buddhist monks Robert Chodo Campbell (left) and Koshin Paley Ellison (right) are members of the UZIT faculty
“Everyone wi ll be a patient one day – but using UZIT in both sickness and wel lness care can make the journey better”
therapy, reiki, essential oil therapy, nutrition and contemplative end-of-life care and self-care (this last one being for the therapists’ personal development) and the curriculum is designed to treat the common symptoms of illness: pain, anxiety, nausea, insomnia and constipation (UZIT uses the acronym PANIC™) and exhaustion. To date, its practitioners have carried
out over 25,000 documented sessions in hospitals, outpatient care centres, support groups, private practices, corporate environments, nursing homes and medical schools. One of the 2009 inaugural training
therapists was Gillian Cilibrasi, who is now the UZIT programme director, charged with, among many other tasks, standardising the UZIT training and scaling the programme so it can touch more lives within the US and beyond. Cilibrasi brings a perfect combination
of wellness knowledge and business background to her role, having been a massage therapist for 15 years and a yoga teacher for a decade, in addition to having worked on all commercial aspects of a medical device start-up
company. She’s owned one of the top health and wellness spas in the Hudson Valley, River Rock Health Spa, and still maintains a private clientele. And like Karan, she’s had her own experience of seeing a loved one become ill and die. Cilibrasi says: “Several years ago, my
stepfather was diagnosed with cancer in the May and he died in the December. He’d come home from chemotherapy and not want to eat. My sister, mother and I, who are all trained therapists, would give him acupuncture, prop him into a supported restorative pose and do energy work with him. He’d fall into a deep sleep and wake up famished. “We could see how his quality of life
improved and he was able to stay well enough to check off many things on his bucket list. When he died, we were at peace with his passing.”
Changing perceptions It’s exactly this kind of practice and result that forms the basis of the UZIT programme. Cilibrasi admits it wasn’t always easy in the early days, as some areas of the medical profession remained staunchly sceptical – yet she
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says there were an equal number of medical institutions that “welcomed us with open arms”. UZIT has very strong partnerships
with major treatment centres such the Beth Israel Center in New York – the location of the fi rst UZIT pilots in 2008 – and the UCLA Health System in California, as well as smaller community facilities such as Southampton Hospital in the Hamptons, which is now one of the strongest employers of UZIT practitioners across all departments. “If you want to work with the medical
profession, you have to be prepared to speak their language,” says Cilibrasi.
“We’re meticulous in collecting outcome data and have several studies ready to go. You have to create evidence-based work to show how the therapies are working and how they can be used to best effect. “One of our studies looked at a 24-bed
fl oor at Beth Israel where UZIT was active. It showed a US$496 saving per patient on pain and nausea and anxiety meds alone. Over a year, that meant a saving of almost US$1m for the hospital, so you can see how it quickly adds up.
August 2015 © Cybertrek 2015
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