It aims to bring together the global community of doctors, health practitioners, nurses and patients to lobby their respective governments for the creation of a healing culture which places priority on the health of the individual rather than on the illness of the individual. In this respect, it supports preventative, nutritional, mind/body medicine, naturopathy and Wellness Medicine and sees healing as being a unique partnership between the doctor and the patient, and between allopathic medicine and complimentary and alternative medicine.

The Medical Renaissance Movement:

• Focuses on healing the whole person - mind, body and spirit in the context of community.
  
• Educates and empowers people to be active participants in their own care. It helps them to take responsibility for their own health and wellness.
  
• Integrates the best of Western scientific medicine with a broader understanding of the nature of illness, healing and wellness.
  
• Uses all appropriate therapeutic approaches and evidenced-based global medical modalities to achieve optimal health and healing.
  
• Encourages the building of healing partnerships with our patients, and supports the individualisation of care.
  
• Aims to create a culture of wellness.
  

If you would like to become a member of the Medical Renaissance Movement, and help to reform the Medical and Health System Globally,, please complete this form and mail, fax or e-mail back to us ASAP on medren@ozemail.com.au

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The Medical Renaissance Movement aims to lobby for a form of medicine which is integrative and health giving and gives individuals the opportunity to take responsibility for their own lives and the opportunity to arrest the development of degenerative disease or prevent it altogether. It aims to create an organization that truly supports the interests of medical practitioners, health practitioners, nurses and the patients.

There is a global health crisis with an increasing epidemic of cancer, cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis, stress and depression. The major cause of this epidemic is lifestyle and nutrition. Rather than spending billions of dollars on pharmaceutical products and biotechnology, the Government should be using the key principles of integral and nutritional medicine to promote health and prevent illness.

The pharmaceutical industry, Globally, has a GDP of over $1 trillion and if Governments continue to use drugs as a primary treatment of illness their GDP's will mushroom out of control.

Implementation of preventive health principles can save billions in health care costs and these dollars can then be reinvested into further research in nutritional and environmental and mind/body medicine. Indeed, it is recognized that the next trillion dollar industry in the world will be the wellness industry.

There are tremendous advances in Complimentary and Alternative medicine occurring in Europe and the United States spear headed for example by the University of California, and the Harvard Medical School.

Adverse affects from pharmaceutical drugs, or illness caused by drugs or technological intervention, is such that the treatment of such illnesses is now the third most common cause of death in western society.

The medical system, in Western society, functions as an anonymous, alienating machine, in which the hospital is structured like a factory, in which patients become institutionalized. Doctors are taught a bio-medical model, which denies the innate healing capacity of the body and sees the human being as a machine which can be fixed by giving a pharmaceutical chemical drug which has many toxic side effects. Most of the pharmaceutical compendium which Doctors consult for prescribing drugs consists of details of the toxic side effects of the drugs prescribed.

The New Medicine, indeed, encompasses a healing approach, which sees the individual as mind, body, and spirit and also as an aspect of community, environment and culture. For example, because globally we live in a political system motivated by fear and scarcity, there is no reason why we should not extrapolate these as being some of the causes of the enormous degree of cardiovascular disease and depression and stress seen in society.

As Doctors, we need to be aware of ourselves as healing agents, and therefore also agents of political change.

There is usually no simplified database referral procedure or even access for other health care agencies. Even with a medical or psychiatric referral it is very difficult for patients to be seen immediately, unless seen privately. GPs or primary care physicians rarely get early feedback about patient care from specialists, especially in hospitals.

GPs are the meat in the sandwich. They feel compelled to provide their patients with the drugs and antibiotics that the patients call for and yet cannot give adequate care which requires a preventative, nutritional and lifestyle approach as they are not paid to do this. This is because doctors are taught the biomedical model which is a reductive paradigm and are not taught about functional medicine which includes prevention of illness and promotion of health. Doctors produce band-aid approaches which serve the financial needs of the pharmaceutical companies who wish to promote their latest drug.

The new medicine which the Medical Renaissance Group proposes is an integrated health system which is based on communication between all specialties of doctors, as well as other health professionals. Above and beyond all of this is the need to change attitudes and mind-set so that we may have healing in the broadest possible sense- healing not only of our society, but of our environment and our planet as they are all related and all vitally connected.

The system is so narrowly focused and self regulating it is unable to see the statistical evidence of burgeoning illness and increased costs because the biomedical model in itself is becoming progressively outmoded and is being taken advantage of to add financial gain to the GDP.

TARGETS FOR THE MEDICAL RENAISSANCE GROUP

THE MEDICAL RENAISSANCE MOVEMENT
www.medicalrenaissance.com has the following targets:

1. To gain recognition for GPs that they be recognized as "specialists" in primary care and the conductors of the primary care orchestra.
2. To promote the primary care physician to play a more fundamental role in the development of the future course of primary health care. The power behind health care initiatives is the government. It is evident that the government and the specialized bodies representing the future of general practice do not adequately represent the views of GPs in a system which is becoming more and more based on computerisation, data storage of records, public health issues and the formation of strict protocols. This is because the government and the representative bodies for GPs are not at the frontline and are not involved in the practice of medicine in every day life.
   
3. To promote a hospital culture which is based on healing, nutrition, and nurturing rather than compartmentalization, specialisation and dehumanization where collateral damage in terms of iatrogenic disease is considered to be unavoidable.
   
4. To promote an overall holistic view of medicine within the context of mind, body, nutritional and environmental medicine, placing an emphasis on preventative care and lifestyle change
5. The Group proposes to lobby for a New Medicine- an integrated health system which is based on communication between all specialties of doctors as well as other health professionals with the prime aim of giving members of the public the opportunity to heal themselves by using the latest understanding of body - mind medicine, psychoneuroimmunology, nutritional, environmental and preventive medicine as well as accessing the very best of complementary medicine. There is a need to change attitudes and mindset so that we have healing in the broadest possible sense not only of the individual, but society, and the environment.
6. The Medical Renaissance Group promotes the integration of complementary and alternative medicine within the Australian medical system in order to widen choice appropriately and harness natural healing potential.
7. To create public awareness about the pros and cons of the current medical system based on the biomedical model and the need for a more inclusive form of medicine which enables them to take more responsibility for their illnesses and also prevent degenerative disease.
8. To create the situation whereby doctors are able to have support groups and support from peers, so that they do not feel isolated or alone when put in difficult therapeutic situations, or have personal problems. In other words, to provide "healing" for the healer.

It is the General Practitioner who should be intimately involved in parameters of health defined by the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion from which has been derived the World Health Authority objectives Health for All by the Year 2000. This includes; Promotion of healthy lifestyles, Prevention of preventable disease, Increasing rehabilitation and community health services.

DR MICHAEL ELLIS, MBBS MRCP DCH MACNEM NPAA BA (Hons) Dip Grad (Nutr Med).

Dr Michael Ellis, Chief Editor and Creative vision behind The New Paradigm Journal, www.newparadigmjournal.com is an English trained Doctor with over 20 years of General Practice experience both in the UK and in Australia. He has higher qualifications in general medicine and paediatrics. He has a special interest in Mind/ Body medicine and in optimising the physical, mental and emotional health of the individual.

As well as his medical qualifications, Dr Ellis also has an Honours Degree in Literature, Arts, Philosophy and Social Psychology. He also has Naturopathic qualifications.

He is Co-Founder of The Medical Renaissance Group www.medicalrenaissance.com. with Dr Jager Holly. He is also Founder and President of the Global Citizens for Peace, www.globalcitizens.org. In conjunction with the Centre for Change in the Third Millenium www.centreforchange.org founded by Dr Michael Ellis, the Global Citizens for Peace, is an open forum and on going dialogue for humankind in key issues affecting sustainable survival and the search for solutions. The aim is the creation of a planetary peace culture.

Dr Ellis has a keen interest in the plight of the ordinary GP and is concerned in creating a more sustainable and caring health system and healing culture for both doctors and the community. Because of this he established the Medical Renaissance Movement with Dr Jager Holly in 2001 in Australia. The Medical Renaissance Movement supports preventative nutritional Mind Body Medicine and Wellness Medicine and sees healing as being a unique partnership between the doctor and the patient. He is on the Executive Board of the Australian Integrative Medical Association (AIMA), http://www.aima.net.au/, Executive Board of World CME http://www.WorldCME.com/ and Executive Board of Child Watch http://www.child-watch.org/

Dr Ellis has conducted seminars on Globalisation, and Wellness at the Post Graduate School of Medicine Swinburne University, Melbourne. He is also an international speaker on Integrative Medicine.

He is the Australian Representative Institute Noetic Sciences http://www.noetic.org/.

and Honorary Adviser, World Unity & Peace Education Department City Montessori School, Lucknow, India http://www.cmseducation.org.

He practices Nutritional and Environmental and Anti Aging Medicine in Kalorama Victoria. http://www.antiageingwellnessclinic.com/m.