Thursday

Health Care Professionals Initiative

Envisioning a health department within Shambhala

A group of Healthcare Professionals in the community have begun a dialogue over the past year about envisioning what a Shambhala Health Department would look like.  If we had the opportunity to develop our own health care system, what would we do?  If we could build, from the ground up, a comprehensive healthcare environment, what would it look like?  How would our understanding and experience of basic goodness, dignity, and compassion shape the evolution of a Shambhala Health Department?  We would like to begin working towards bringing Healthcare Professionals who are current members of the Shambhala community together for a weekend of discussions and mutual exploration of these and other questions.

Of course, before we even begin to address these questions, we have to find out what skills and talent we have in our community.   To that end, this is an invitation, to all those who work as Healthcare Professionals, to write and tell us what you do, where you work and how long you have been working in the field.  It would also be helpful to let us know what your training has been and what degrees you have achieved.

We plan to invite people to speak and facilitate discussions based on the themes that come forward in this survey, so we invite you to share your current work and your visioning for the future

You can access the Google survey at this link, which asks the following questions:

• Name:
• Occupation:
• Professional training or degrees:
• Where you live:
• Shambhala Centre at which you are a member:
• Current Shambhala practice level (not that it matters):
• How long have you been in the field:
• If you are so inclined, your ideas about what a Shambhala Department of Health would look like:

We know how busy you all are, but ask that you please take a moment and provide your information.  We plan to invite people to speak and facilitate discussions based on the themes that come forward in this survey, so we invite you to share your current work and your visioning for the future.

We also invite you to continue this discussion on the Healthcare Professionals group on the Shambhala Network.

Thanks for providing your information via the survey.  We look forward to working together and challenge each other to address these important questions.

Yours in the Shambhala Dharma,

Acharya Mitchell M. Levy, MD

Wendy Anderson, MD, Meditation Instructor and senior teacher

Mark Allen, Meditation Instructor, senior teacher, and Senior Advisor to Healthcare Executives

Sarah Kimball, MD, Rusung Boston Shambhala Center