Part of the reason I moved from to Minnesota in 2016 after medical school is because of the openness to holistic health within the medical system here. I participated in a one-month integrative medicine rotation that was orchestrated by Andrew Weil at the University of Arizona, and they offer a fellowship in integrative medicine that is mostly online. My residency program had an affiliation with that group, and I intuitively trusted a residency program more that would lean in that direction. During my training, there was a group of integrative practitioners that worked in the same building, but often weren’t too close to the residency training itself.

Anyways, I met Bill Manahan, who is a past president of the American Holistic Medicine Association and he collaborated with Christiane Northrup there. That organization went through a name change and is now the AIHM. Bill also started the Minnesota Holistic Medical Group, and over the last 40 years, they have had 3 annual, in-person meetings which provided practitioners an opportunity to meet each others, to learn from each other, and to refer to each other. It has been a passion project for Bill, and he has a personal relationship with each of the 900 members that are on their email list. Now that Bill is in his 80s and living in a retirement community, he is looking to pass the torch on leading and organizing this group.

There is an in-person meetup on Saturday Oct 21st and I will plan to be there. There is also a leadership organizing meeting for the 3 meetings in 2024 on Nov 1st, which I will also attend.

Okay, getting to the point and the intention of this post, Bill is also part of an in-person retreat that is being hosted Nov 9-12. There are 2 scholarships available to cover the ~$1800 expense. I would love to attend and to integrate with that group. I encourage you to apply for one of the scholarships, and if you are selected, we can be there together.

Someday, I may have my own in-person retreat offering. But in this case, having the organizing work done by others feels worth the price tag to me. Applications for the scholarship are due in a few days, Oct 1st. It only asks for 2 sentences. I am open to helping you clarify and craft your application.