“The benefits of maintaining hope” is one of the topics to be presented by a neurosurgeon at a daylong conference for brain tumor patients and caregivers to be held October 23 at Cedars-Sinai, an academic medical center that both treats patients and conducts research. Another topic, mixed in with all the drugs and radiation and other harsher treatments to be discussed, is alternative medicine.

It’s encouraging to see these hints that western medical minds are growing ever more open to the mind/body connection. It won’t be long until it’s so mainstream that you’ll have these approaches as options at every doctor visit and every hospital stay…

But that’s still a long way off.