Psychologist Matthew Condie, Ph.D., led exercises for stress reduction and strategies for rethinking the nature of mental distress.

The second annual University of Western States Seminar Series was held on April 30, 2024. Visiting professor Matthew Condie, Ph.D., presented “Soothing the Stress: Advancing in Ambiguity Through Resilience, Belonging, and Post-Traumatic Growth.” Through his interactions with athletes and patients, Dr. Condie understands the symptoms of stress and is committed to finding strategies for coping.

Dr. Condie experienced his greatest levels of stress as mental health expert providing the Australian government with clinical recommendations regarding asylum seekers and refugee children. His 72-hour work weeks contributed to his stress. Even more stressful was Dr. Condie’s constant concern for the refugees whose fates were up in the air.

“Stress impacts our functioning, and our body responds by sending neurochemical reinforcements to our brains,” Dr. Condie said during the webinar.

As a clinician who deals with the interaction between physiological and neurological responses, Dr. Condie delved extensively into these realms during the webinar, including an exercise in which he bit into a raw lemon, peel and all.

“Notice what emotions came up for you,” he told the audience during this demonstration. “Disgust releases serotonin, shock releases cortisol, and empathy release oxytocin.” The message of the exercise is that humans have the power to influence each other’s physiology. Thus, we’re resposible for affecting others’ already stressed systems.

One key to stress reduction that Dr. Condie advances is to “foster a sense of belonging across the five selves,” i.e., self-care, self-compassion, self-regulation, self-reflection, and self-awareness.

“When we encourage and promote the five selves, our ability to tolerate distress increases, so our window of tolerance can support us in the future as we navigate stress,” Dr. Condie said.

According to Dr. Condie, this individual resilience and system resilience is a two-way street. In other words, we can’t expect an individual to adapt to changes in society’s systems if our culture and organizational systems can’t or won’t adapt to individuals.

“A sense of organizational belonging can make individuals more willing to support others, and, therefore indirectly, the organization,” Dr. Condie said. “They have a collective sense to share the vulnerability around times of stress and change and have higher levels of well-being. This in turn leads to greater productivity.”

This year, University of Western States honors two Alumni of the Year: Lauren Castle, PharmD, M.S., AFMC, and Eric Roseen, DC, Ph.D.

Lauren Castle, PharmD, M.S., AFMC – Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine, Class of 2018

Dr. Lauren Castle is a best-selling author, keynote speaker, and the founder and CEO of the Functional Medicine Pharmacists Alliance (FMPhA), one of the first associations representing pharmacists in functional medicine. FMPhA supports members practicing functional medicine across all pharmacy settings by uniting leaders in the field to provide continuing education, training, networking, and advocacy. In addition, Dr. Castle serves as secretary of the board for Con Smania Costa Rica – Transformational Retreat Center and a member of the Psychedelic Pharmacists Association. She and her husband Seth live in Dayton, Ohio, with their cats, Olive and Pickle.

What made you decide to attend UWS?

After discovering functional medicine in 2015 through my husband’s own life-changing health journey, I was convinced that functional medicine was the future of health care. At the time, I was still working as a retail pharmacist for a large chain, so travel was not an option; it needed to be fully remote. I had also been considering enrolling in an MBA or MPH program to further differentiate myself within the pharmacy profession. When I came across the Master of Science in Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine program, I knew I had found the solution. I wanted a program that was more than just a certification or more letters behind my name; one that would give me a deeply scientific understanding of functional medicine and position me as an expert in this emerging field. The fact that UWS was a top-ranking, regionally accredited university with a long, rich history of excellence gave me even more confidence that it would be a rigorous program my peers in the conventional medicine field would respect as well.

What does being an Alumnus of the Year mean to you?

Being named Alumnus of the Year is an incredible honor, and I’m proud to represent the profession of pharmacy. As a pharmacist, I recognize that “a pill for every ill” is not the solution to the chronic disease epidemic, and that functional medicine is a more viable path. It’s my hope that this recognition will highlight and accelerate the collaborative work we are doing within Functional Medicine Pharmacists Alliance to make functional medicine the standard of care through pharmacist-led clinical services.

What do you love about your current role?

FMPhA got its start as an online networking group in 2017, through which I could stay in touch with pharmacists whom I met through my functional medicine speaking engagements at state pharmacist association meetings. I also began blogging about functional medicine and how to get started in this growing field. The group grew from just 30 members in 2017 to more than 4,000 pharmacists today. In 2020, we launched our official membership program, as well as partnerships with organizations such as the Institute for Functional Medicine and the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine. In 2023, we launched our flagship training course, the Functional Medicine Pharmacists Bootcamp. What I love most about my work is knowing that we are truly changing health care, one pharmacist, one practitioner, one organizational partnership, and one patient at a time.

Eric Roseen, DC, Ph.D. – Doctor of Chiropractic, Class of 2011

Dr. Roseen resides in Massachusetts where he is a researcher and clinician within the Family Medicine Department at Boston Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine. He is involved in multiple ongoing research projects within BMC’s Program for Integrative Medicine and Healthcare Disparities, and he recently opened a chiropractic clinic at BMC, training students of various backgrounds while also developing his own knowledge as a CARL II Research Fellow. Dr. Roseen continues to expand the roles chiropractors have within the health care system, and he does it in a way that facilitates more doors opening to new generations. His relevant and timely research into whole-person care in underserved populations demonstrates Dr. Roseen’s commitment to working in areas that go underexplored by many chiropractors.

What made you decide to attend UWS?

I grew up in North Dakota and was helped by a chiropractor in my hometown after an injury kept me from my sport in high school. Throughout my undergraduate studies, I was sure I wanted to pursue a Doctor of Chiropractic degree but unsure where I would go. When I visited Portland, I really enjoyed the city and its natural beauty. I liked that UWS emphasized evidence-based practice and that they had been involved in clinical research. I didn’t have any research training or experience at that point, but I appreciated that those skills would be important to making decisions in clinical practice.

What does being an Alumnus of the Year mean to you?

I’m honored by this award. Being on the other side of the country now, in Boston, makes it particularly meaningful to receive this recognition. I have a lot of great memories from my time at UWS and in Portland. I hope to reconnect with my colleagues there and share some of what we are doing over here on the East Coast.

What do you love about your current role?

I’m an assistant professor at the Boston University School of Medicine, and I provide clinical care at Boston Medical Center, a large academic safety net hospital, and it’s the mix of clinical research and patient care that I enjoy most. I develop questions in the clinic that I can try to answer through my research. My clinic is embedded in the general internal medicine primary care clinic, and I enjoy working in a multidisciplinary setting.

At Boston Medical Center, I direct the Program for Integrative Medicine and Health [JW1] Disparities, where I contribute to medical student education on integrative medicine, support integrative medicine clinical services, and lead several clinical trials. Through this work I have enjoyed learning about a range of nonpharmacologic treatments (e.g., acupuncture, tai chi, yoga) and their effectiveness for common musculoskeletal conditions such as low back pain and knee osteoarthritis.

Different viewpoints are critical for students to learn early in their education. The Community-Based Clinical Education (CBCE) program at UWS gives students experience working with a diverse set of patients in varying health care sites and systems. We spoke with Patrick Battaglia, DC, DACBR, assistant vice president of CBCE, about the ways CBCE enhances student training, patient outcomes, and community well-being.

What is community-based clinical education?

DR. BATTAGLIA: It’s a distributed model of clinical teaching and learning. Traditionally, health science students attend preclinical coursework then go through on-campus clinical education. Sometimes that includes a small number of community-based placements. Community-based clinical education makes that model more distributed. Students have opportunities to be in different health systems, private systems, hospital systems, and so on. With a distributed system, you can take advantage of a bigger network and diverse clinical experiences.

How is CBCE important for students?

DR. BATTAGLIA: It offers a lot of geographic flexibility. For example, students could return earlier to their hometown to engage in real-world clinical education. The opportunity to be back home or in whatever geography they choose gives many students a good career on-ramp. Imagine being an intern in a site where you’re going to be employed later. You’d get a chance to learn the culture, be immersed in the site, learn the patients and the people. You’re going to be more successful earlier.

Community-based education inherently offers students diverse clinical experiences. If you spent all your clinical education in one site, you would see an insulated patient base that might not be representative of the population. Breadth of clinical education makes a better physician, someone who’s going to have more cultural competency, someone who’s going to be able to provide better care.

How does CBCE support local communities?

DR. BATTAGLIA: Students interface with the community early and often. This increases access to services that otherwise couldn’t be provided. Students develop a sense for that community and will be more inclined to give back and participate in other community initiatives.

How does CBCE address inequities in health care and serve historically disenfranchised groups?

DR. BATTAGLIA: Health inequities are often characterized by an access issue. If you have clinical education opportunities in underserved areas, you’ve offered health care services that otherwise wouldn’t be available, whether it’s chiropractic medicine, naturopathic medicine, or other whole-health disciplines.

How does CBCE improve patient outcomes?

DR. BATTAGLIA: Community-based education gives students the opportunity to see significantly more people and diversity of conditions. Future patients are going to be better served by graduates of this program because they’re going to get someone with more experience, more context, and a better ability to provide care.

What other skills do students gain from the CBCE program?

DR. BATTAGLIA: Students develop soft skills that are important for success in practice, things like talking to patients and understanding patients’ perspectives. Students learn to cultivate more empathy, communicate better, and better problem-solve unique situations. It’s important that they get these exposures while they’re students, because it’s going to make them more successful when they get into practice.

How else will the CBCE program position graduates for success?

DR. BATTAGLIA: We’re proactive about cultivating rotation opportunities in private practice settings, in retail health systems, and in large integrated systems. Our students have that range of health system exposure. We know what health care looks like today, and it’s important to prepare our students for that. More importantly, we prepare our students to thrive in the health care marketplace of tomorrow, and that’s going to look very different.

University of Western States has been at the forefront of chiropractic education for 120 years. On this milestone anniversary, we spoke with Dr. Martha Kaeser, dean of the College of Chiropractic, and Dr. Stanley Ewald, associate dean, about how the Doctor of Chiropractic program at UWS is more vital than ever.

What is the need for chiropractors in health care today?

DR. EWALD: There’s a great need. Chiropractic medicine is an underutilized discipline in health care. Many people are either unfamiliar with chiropractic medicine or have misunderstandings about chiropractors and what we do. I think that’s improving. People understand the chiropractic approach better. The more that understanding grows, the more people will seek chiropractic care.

UWS is at the forefront of whole-person health and wellness. How do you define whole-person health care?

DR. KAESER: Whole health is looking at a patient not as a collection of separate areas. If a patient comes in, and their chief complaint is a headache, I’m going to look at this person as a whole person, not just a head or not just a spine if they’re complaining of some kind of back pain.

DR. EWALD: Chiropractic is about addressing patients’ primary issues but it also prevention. We ask questions such as, “How can we implement exercise to strengthen this patient and prevent future injuries or health problems? What does this patient’s nutrition look like? How is this patient’s mental health? I believe the whole-health approach influenced other disciplines of health care largely because the public saw it already happening in chiropractic.

A lot has changed over 120 years. How has the College of Chiropractic changed to address modern needs?

DR. EWALD: The fact that we’ve been successful for 120 years is a testament to UWS’ ability to adapt. We’ve had visionary leadership over 120 years, leaders who have kept pace with the changing health care and educational landscapes. Education today is vastly different than it was 20 years ago.

DR. KAESER: We’re using learning management systems now. Students don’t have to get all the material at once, but they can come prepared to a lecture. For instance, they may watch a 60-minute video or a 20- or 30-minute video. When they come to class, the instructor will have them working through cases, and they’ll apply the information they attained through the video in preparation for class. We use that same way of learning in our lab classes.

DR. EWALD: We have software that breaks down anatomy. Students can go online and see these anatomical breakdowns active and in 3D. They can see the actions of muscles, the effects they have on joints and bones. It’s phenomenal.

What soft skills will define the next generation of chiropractors? In other words, who is the ideal student for the doctor of chiropractic program?

DR. KAESER: I like a student to ask a lot of questions, to be resilient, and to be a good communicator, someone who not only is able to communicate with peers but with team members when they get into a clinical setting. I like a student who understands that, after UWS, learning does not stop, because things are going to be changing all the time. I encourage students to be in this for the long haul as far as lifelong learning.

DR. EWALD: I believe the definition of a good doctor should include compassion. Thus, the students who are best equipped for success are those who come to UWS with a compassionate mindset, who approach their studies with that mindset, and who seek to serve others with compassion, empathy, and kindness.