Western physicians, nurses and other health care providers face high rates of stress and burnout compared to other professions. Tibetan medicine, an integration of Chinese, Ayurveda, ancient Greek, and indigenous Tibetan healing arts, is an ancient medical system with relevance for health care today. In particular, Tibetan medical texts discuss the qualities of compassion and methods for its cultivation in order for physicians, nurses and other healthcare personnel to become effective healers.

In this presentation, Dr. Tenzin Namdul, a Tibetan Medical Practitioner and medical anthropologist interested in the intersection of Tibetan medicine and Buddhist psycho-philosophy in the care of terminally-ill patients, will be joined by Tibetan physician Dr. Yangdron Kalzang, and Tibetan meditation instructor, Geshe Lobsang Partsang, to share techniques and perspectives on the development of compassion and self-care for health care providers. Jennifer Daubenmier, Ph.D., will discuss the emergence of compassion training for health care providers across medical universities and present recent survey findings among Western vs Tibetan medical students on similarities and differences in levels of stress and ways of coping in medical school. The presentation will include guided meditation and discussion.  The discussion will be moderated by David Bullard, Ph.D.

Speakers:

Dr. Tenzin Namdul                                                                                    
Teaching Faculty, Center for Spirituality and Healing, University of Minnesota

Dr. Namdul's doctoral research, funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation and Fulbright-Hays Fellowship, examines how death and dying perspectives of Tibetan medical doctors, Buddhist practitioners, and lay people translate into their care for dying individuals and informs their own attitudes about dying. This ethnographic study explores the Tibetan Buddhist contemplative practice called thugs dam (pronounced tukdam), a meditation that adept practitioners engage in after a clinical death.  His results show how these attitudes and perceptions inform and shape both the socio-moral fabric of life and the sense of well-being at the time of dying in Tibetan refugee communities in India.

Dr. Namdul's future research focuses on conducting a cross-cultural comparative study with terminally-ill patients using the Constitutional Self-Assessment Tool (CSAT), created by Dr. Namdul and Dr. Miriam Cameron, based on Tibetan medicine. Their research team tested, refined, and published the CSAT, now used in the U.S., India, and Tibet to teach Tibetan Medicine.  His latest publication is:
Cameron, M.E., & Namdul, T. (2020). Tibetan Medicine and You: A Path to Wellbeing, Better Health, and Joy. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. (The book explains how to use Tibetan medicine for self-care and integrative care).

Dr. Yangdron Kalzang, Menpa, DAOM,  LAc.
Doctor of Tibetan Medicine, Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine and Licensed Acupuncturist
Founder and Director, Kunde Institute:  Center for Tibetan Wellness and Healing, Daly City, CA

Dr. Kalzang was born in Tibet and was first introduced to Tibetan Medicine as a young child by her uncle, who served as Chief Physician for the Integrative Unit of the Tibetan Medical Hospital (Men-Tsee-Khang) in Lhasa. She was later fortunate to work under his supervision at the Tibetan Medical Hospitals in Lhasa and Chengdu. Menpa Yangdron earned her Tibetan Medicine degree from the Tibetan Medical University in Lhasa, Tibet. She has been practicing Tibetan Medicine for over 20 years and she speaks and teaches throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe.

Dr. Kalzang's previous teachings include at The International Forum on Buddhism and Medicine in Montpellier, France 2006, along with lectures at Stanford University, the University of California at San Francisco, the University of California at Santa Cruz, Rice University, Amherst College, and many Buddhist centers. She lectured at the 1998 and 2003 Congress of Tibetan Medicine in Washington D.C. and at the California State Oriental Medical Association Conference in 2002 and 2003. More recently, she has given presentations at the Rubin Museum in New York in 2016, conferences in Integrative Medicine in Barcelona and Tenerife, Spain in 2016 and 2017. Since 2008, Dr. Kalzang has coordinated a series of Tibetan and Western Medicine Integrative Symposia at Stanford University.

Geshe Lobsang Partsang (DAOM Cand.)
Geshe Ngarampa, Meditation Instructor and Tibetan Medicine Practitioner

Geshe Lobsang is a Tibetan Medicine practitioner and instructor of Mindfulness Training and a student of Traditional Chinese Medicine at University of East West Medicine in Sunnyvale, California. Geshe Lobsang completed a rigorous over 20-year study of Buddhism at Gyudmed Tantric Monastic University in South India, where he received the Geshe Ngarampa degree. He is also trained to teach Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and certified by the Center for Mindfulness at UMass Medical School. He has been serving as a Buddhist Chaplain at Santa Clara County Jail for the past seven years teaching mindfulness sessions.
Geshe Lobsang studied Tibetan Medicine at the International Academy for Tibetan Traditional Medicine and has been practicing in Kunde Institute's clinic in Daly City. He teaches courses in Buddhism, meditation and the arts of compassion, and travels regularly throughout the United States, Taiwan, India, Russia and Europe.  are from Kunde Institute in Daly City will share techniques and perspectives on the development of compassion and self-care for health care providers.

Jennifer Daubenmier, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor in the Holistic Health Studies program at San Francisco State University (SFSU)

Dr. Daubenmier received her doctorate in social psychology at the University of California, Berkeley in 2002 and conducted postdoctoral research at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in health psychology. From 2007-2016, Dr. Daubenmier was Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at UCSF. For the past 15 years, she has studied the impact of Eastern mind-body healing practices, including meditation and yoga, on psychological wellbeing and health outcomes among individuals with obesity, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and prostate cancer. She has conducted NIH-funded randomized controlled trials to examine the impact of meditation and mindful eating practices on eating behavior and metabolic health. In 2015, she was awarded a U.S. Fulbright Senior Research Scholar Award to study Tibetan medical and Buddhist perspectives of the mind-body relationship in Dharamsala, India. She currently teaches a course on traditional Tibetan healing methods at SFSU.

Moderator: