Welcome the new year with a renewed commitment to creating a healthy lifestyle for yourself and your family. Learn why it’s so important to manage the stress that contributes to so many illnesses. Discover where to find a plethora of information that will enable you create your own personalized plan for fostering healing, overall wellbeing and nurturing mind, body and spirit. Our guests, Dr. Mary Jo Kreitzer and Dr. Karen Lawson, will describe some of the innovative programs offered at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Spirituality and Healing that will empower you to take charge of your own health, navigate the healthcare system and explore a variety of integrative healing practices.

Listen: 12-18-09: Taking Charge of Your Health: Guests: Mary Jo Kreitzer, PhD and Karen Lawson, MD

Mary Jo Kreitzer, PhD

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 has been the principal investigator of several NIH and NCCAM clinical trials on the impact of various mind/body interventions. Mary Jo also 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. Dr. Kreitzer earned her doctoral degree in health services research and her master’s and bachelor’s degrees in nursing.

Karen Lawson, MD

Board-certified in family medicine and holistic medicine, Karen Lawson, M.D., is teaching faculty at the Center for Spirituality and Healing, where she leads the integrative medical education efforts, teaches about Shamanism, and is the Director of the Health Coaching program. She is an Assistant Professor of Family Medicine and Community Health, and teaches in the UMN Medical School. She is immediate past-president of the American Holistic Medical Association and a founding Diplomat of the American Board of Holistic Medicine. Karen is an author, researcher, integrative medicine consultant and popular national speaker. She has advanced training in homeopathy from the Northwest School of Homeopathy in MN where she is also on the faculty. She has studied shamanic medicine for the last 10 years and brings expertise in meditation techniques, yoga, dance/movement therapies and nutrition. Karen’s special interests include rites of passage and ritual for healing.