Medicine man among white coats
Aarhus University Hospital now employs alternative methods in an attempt to give chronically ill patients a longer and better life.
Professor and Head of the Medical Infection Ward Lars Østergaard has invited an Indian medicine man onto his ward.
Aarhus University Hospital have good results using a Native American medicine man in the department of infectious medicine.
Scepticism from colleagues
- Is he crazy?
That is how Lars Østergaard describes one of the reactions that scientist colleagues of his give him when they hear that he has hired Hawk of The Yellow Wind.
Because although braids, feathers and peace pipes are nowhere to be seen, it is not every day that a professor In the Danish health service allows a Canadian Indian to coach his chronically ill patients out of their role of victim.
Gives patients push and drive
- He has different skills to ours. He encourages the patients taking part in the project to assume more responsibility for their own lives and illness. And that gives them a very different kind of vigour and willpower, says Lars Østergaard.
He says that the project, which is financed by a private fund, has just been extended from one to four years. So far, patients have had only reacted positively, and research results show that they have even become less sick.
Strong patients help weaker ones
- Patients have actually recovered so much that the ones with the most energy have started to help those that are not feeling quite as strong.
And if we can achieve a health service like that through coaching - then maybe we can find a completely new approach to the problem of not having enough staff in the health service.
One of the patients suffering from a chronic illness who has met Hawk of The Yellow Wind is Jacob Hermansen. He now regards his illness as a gift.
The article is taken from P4 Jutland
Written by Sanne Nyland Christensen
http://www.dr.dk/P4/Aarhus/Nyheder/Aarhus/2011/05/19/080428.htm