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Signature Presentations

Slow Medicine is applicable to all walks of life, and to this end, Michael Finkelstein MD – who practices integrative medicine in New York – offers numerous workshops, lectures, and training seminars, for people of all ages, backgrounds, and interests. Below are Dr. Finkelstein’s signature presentations – each one hour long, followed by 30 minutes of Q&A and 30 min of book signing and personal Q&A. Each presentation can be adapted to a longer or shorter format. In addition, Dr. Finkelstein offers customized programs that tailor the Slow Medicine message to the specific needs of a particular audience. For more information about bringing Dr. Finkelstein to your community, please download the Slow Medicine program logistics document. To book a program, please contact the Slow Medicine team, or click the button below:

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Slow Medicine Is the Best Quick Fix for Your Health

In our fast-paced world, we often look for quick-fix solutions to our health challenges, not realizing that these “solutions” in fact may contribute to our problems. Most health challenges are the result of an imbalance in our bodies and lives, and most quick-fix solutions actually exacerbate these imbalances. To achieve and sustain optimal health, we need perspective that goes beyond the obvious symptoms. That’s because everything is inter-dependent – muscles and nerves, bodies and minds, people and planet – and each connecting thread has a domino effect on the other. In this event, participants will learn about the interconnected web of our health and will receive guidance on how to channel the domino effect in a positive direction, so as to cultivate lasting wellness.

Slow Medicine for the Fast Executive

With corporations moving at lightning speed, executives are under constant strain to perform and produce around the clock. For these reasons, many executives hit fight-or-flight mode shortly after opening their eyes and keep at it until they collapse into bed at night. Some never even exit this state, leading to chronic insomnia. Stuck in “sympathetic overdrive,” with the sympathetic nervous system locked in the “on” position, executives suffer from a depletion of vitamins, minerals, and enzymes – all of which are needed to stay energized and healthy. Human beings need to hit the pause button and activate the parasympathetic nervous system, the rest/digest mechanism, to stay in balance and prevent illness. But today’s fast executive has a hard time finding even five minutes to relax. In this presentation, Dr. Finkelstein – himself a former executive who worked 16-18 hour days – offers intelligent and creative strategies, as well as specially-designed, highly-customized approaches, to help executives slow down enough to get and stay healthy.

Slow Medicine Tools for Conventional Medicine Practitioners

From the grueling demands of medical schools, to the machine-like schedules of doctor offices, to the barrage of trauma in hospitals, the world of conventional healthcare puts extreme stress on the body, soul, heart, and mind of its practitioners – inadvertently leading to the very illnesses that doctors treat in patients. Passionate about sharing their healing gifts with the world, and viewing the medical system as the best path for doing so, many of those studying and working in healthcare feel trapped in an unforgiving system. In this presentation, participants will learn simple yet effective holistic health strategies that can be implemented for self-care and patient care, even amidst a profit-driven, assembly-line model of medicine. In addition, participants will learn how to connect the dots between individual, communal, and global health – acquiring tools for building a supportive community and effecting change, from the inside out.

The Slow Medicine Imperative of Sabbath

In our modern world of go-go-go, it is critical to set aside a weekly day of rest, known in many societies as a Sabbath day, to help shift from our sympathetic to our parasympathetic nervous system – which in turn activates our healing response mechanisms and keeps us in balance. In addition to revealing the many health benefits of a Sabbath, Dr. Finkelstein – who practices integrative medicine in New York – will offer his recommendations for the kinds of activities to engage in and refrain from, so as to customize the optimal day of rest for each individual, whether religious or secular. Dr. Finkelstein furthermore will address the greater context of a Sabbath day, discussing the importance of getting back in synch with the natural rhythms of our bodies in particular and the world in general. Lastly, Dr. Finkelstein will share anecdotes of his own personal experience with Sabbath, growing up in a religious home, and will share how this experience influenced his thinking about a day of rest from a Slow Medicine perspective.

Slow Medicine Transforms the War against Cancer into a Treasure Hunt

Dr. Finkelstein, who practices integrative medicine in New York, is well-acquainted with cancer. Not only has he been the physician for numerous patients diagnosed with cancer, but as a young internal medicine resident, he supported three out of four of his grandparents through their cancer journeys. Over the years, as he left the world of conventional medicine and dove into the world of integrative medicine, Dr. Finkelstein discovered that the most effective approach to cancer was embracing it as an opportunity instead of framing it as a battle. Instead of making cancer the focus, by fighting the disease, patients make themselves the focus, by optimizing every area of their lives – eating nutrient dense foods that activate the innate healing response mechanism; discarding toxic relationships in favor of uplifting and nourishing ones; devoting time to enjoying natural settings; aligning the body and mind through guided imagery and meditation; practicing self-expression through music, dance, writing, and painting; and otherwise cultivating the “terrain” of a life that not only is passionate and joyous but, as a byproduct, is inhospitable to cancer. As part of this special program, Dr. Finkelstein will share his own family cancer stories, will discuss the cancer stories of his patients (keeping their identifying details confidential), and will invite program participants to share their inspirational journeys of living with and healing from cancer.

The Slow Medicine Kitchen

When most of us think about “nutrition,” we zero in on specific foods, doing our best to follow the litany of dietary guidelines that inevitably change every few years. Not only do we end up feeling deprived, but we also end up feeling somewhat neurotic, ever-anxious about what we “should” and “shouldn’t” be eating. In this workshop, participants learn a more relaxed, intuitive, and expansive view of nutrition, in which we simultaneously feed the body, heart, mind, and soul. From where we get our food, to how we prepare our ingredients, to the way we set our table, to the people we invite to share our meal, this presentation explores the many opportunities for true “nourishment.” Participants learn how the simple act of eating can be elevated into one of building community, moving the body with joy and purpose, awakening sensuality, creating works of art, and otherwise engaging in “healthy multitasking” that optimizes wellness on each and every level.

Slow Medicine for Women

Historically, women have been applauded for putting others first and condemned for putting themselves first. Meanwhile, even as women have taken on the same responsibilities as men in the workplace, women still have shouldered a disproportionate burden of responsibility in the home. As if this giving-receiving imbalance were not bad enough, women often feel guilt and shame, as a result of not living up to super-human expectations. In this workshop, participants connect the dots between cultural norms, social pressures, and the disproportionate levels of chronic illness among women. In addition, participants learn what steps they and their loved ones can take, both to help individual women come back into balance and therefore greater health, and to help move our society into one that is healthier and more equitable in its expectations of women.

Healthy Multitasking with Slow Medicine

The Slow Medicine Wheel of Health encompasses seven aspects of wellness – the physical, the mental-emotional, our relationship to others, our relationship to the natural world, our community, our relationship to the Divine, and our life’s purpose work. Each “spoke” is a moving part with the potential to activate our innate healing response mechanism, and each spoke furthermore is dynamic – interacting with and amplifying the power of the other spokes. In other words, our wellness is not only the sum total of each spoke, or each moving part, but it is also the synergistic relationship between them. Through journaling, meditating, dancing, creating art, reading inspirational texts, walking through the woods, and otherwise activating and integrating the seven spokes of the Slow Medicine Wheel of Health, we proactively engage the interconnected web of wellness and channel a domino effect in a positive direction, through a bio-chemical cascade of wellness. In this presentation, participants learn how Slow Medicine effectively offers a healthy twist on “multitasking,” one that results in a medical alchemy that in turn has the potential to heal chronic illness or keep us healthy to begin with.

Slow Medicine for Our Bodies and Our Planet

Our personal health is directly linked to our collective health. GMOs, toxic waste, the destruction of rainforests, the use of pesticides, and so many other global matters affect us in the most intimate ways, as evidenced by the skyrocketing incidents of chronic illness in the past few decades. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), half of America now suffers from at least one chronic illness; chronic illness causes 70% of deaths in the United States each year; and the percentage of children and adolescents with chronic illness has quadrupled since the 1960s. The good news is that we have the power and potential to effect change – simultaneously improving our individual health while contributing to the wellbeing of our society and planet as a whole. This program guides participants in identifying and lining up all the moving parts of personal, communal, and global wellness – offering practical skills for restoring genuine health and vitality to our lives and our world.

Slow Medicine Offers Hope and Healing for People with Chronic Illness

Those with chronic illness share the common and disheartening experience of bouncing around from doctor to doctor, seeking an accurate diagnosis and/or effective treatment plan. In many cases, the lynchpin for resolving the health condition is fairly obscure and is therefore overlooked by doctors of conventional and even integrative medicine. Sometimes that lynchpin is manifesting one’s life purpose; other times it is eliminating toxic relationships; and yet other times it is redefining notions of “health” to include spiritual, emotional, and psychological dimensions. In this presentation, which is customized individually for audiences with specific illnesses, Dr. Finkelstein – who practices integrative medicine in New York – guides participants on taking inventory of each aspect of their lives, lining up all the moving parts of their unique sense of wellness, and designing a personalized action plan for achieving a state of health and wholeness. Please see our “healing chronic illness” page for case studies of how this Slow Medicine approach works.