“Integrating Science and Tradition into the Highest Quality Medical Care of the 21st Century”
Medical Director, Mikhail Kogan, MD
Dear friends,
I would like to welcome you to the GW Center for Integrative Medicine and share my vision of our work together towards better health.
During my medical training I worked in different settings: hospitals and large and small clinics. I have worked in an upscale neurology office in Philadelphia, a busy emergency room in the Bronx, and an open ward with dying patients in Kisoro, Uganda. While healthcare delivery is so varied in different parts of the world, each location has something in common: the people who attend to those suffering, the medical team.
I still remember an idealistic vision I had during my years of medical school: “I will become a primary care doctor and will take care of almost all of my patients’ issues.” That was naïve. However, that passion, which I still cherish, flourished into: “I will become a member of a team that can take care of almost all of my patients’ issues.” I did my utmost to become a member of a team that creates space and time for each patient walking into the clinic so that their individual healing path can be honored and followed no matter how complicated the task at hand is.
So, what is the healing path and what has it got to do with medicine? Everything and nothing. Everything, because in the process of treatment and healing, many steps are medical, such as taking natural or synthetic prescription medications, changing the diet, starting mind-body, physical, or energy therapy — all those steps are grounded in theoretical and evidence-based data that we are constantly learning and updating. Nothing, because the path in itself is a self-discovery by the patient, a chance to learn what is out of balance and why. Lack of balance can stem from any aspect of life and wellness domains: spiritual, emotional, mental, social, physical, or environmental. This guided self-discovery process more often than not leads to re-evaluation and transformation of one’s beliefs, attitudes, and actions within the affected domain.
I’m honored to be a part of the Center’s dedicated team and grateful to all of our past, current, and future patients, who let our team SERVE you humbly and professionally.
Mikhail Kogan, MD
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GWCIM believes in bringing the benefits of integrative medicine to everyone. For that reason, it donates a part of its earnings to AIM Health Institute, a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization created to serve terminally ill and low-income patients regardless of ability to pay.
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