September 2000

Sarina Gets the Credit
By Cynthia Goldstone

Behind every great achievement stands a hero—someone with a vision and the focus to see it through. The recent breakthrough of Continuing Medical Education credit for doctors who attend special seminars on the Transcendental Meditation technique is just such an achievement—and the hero behind it is Sarina Grosswald, Ed.D.

Sarina is the Director of Continuing Medical Education (CME) at InforMed, an organization nationally accredited to offer CME programs. In the United States, most state medical boards require physicians to take a specific number of hours of CME courses each year to renew their license to practice. Typically, the courses provide u dates on medical therapies, such as new medications or treatment a roaches, which doctors can then recommend to their patients.

Sarina’s vision was to create new courses showing doctors the solid science behind the TM technique. "I worked with Dr. Barry Charles to create an extensive proposal for the board of InforMed," says Sarina. "We were lucky because just at that time there was a survey in USA Today reporting that 86 percent of physicians thought there should be instruction on meditation in medical school, and that they would like to be able to use it in their practices. So we were able to show an identified need as well as all the compelling scientific data."

As an instructional designer, Sarina worked with a content committee including physicians Robert Schneider, Barry Charles and Caesar Molina, along with David Lonsdorf. She developed the course participant booklets with scientific charts, literature references, and faculty manuals.

Sarina, who is also a teacher of the Transcendental Meditation technique, was in a unique position to act as a bridge between the TM program con tent and the accreditation requirements. To be a roved for credit, the courses and faculty have to meet the objective standards set by CME’s national accreditation council and by the American Medical Association.

Sarina’s hard work has aid off. Now physicians can earn CME credit in three different ways:

• a special medically-oriented seminar entitled Stress and Cardiovascular Disease: Research and Applicability of the Transcendental Meditation Technique for Managing Cardiovascular Risk. (1.5 hours credit)
• a course entitled Optimizing physician Health and patient Care: The Transcendental Meditation program, offered in conjunction with the physician's personal instruction in the TM technique. The course is also available for doctors who have already learned the TM technique.
• the introductory session of the 12- day Special Training Course in Maharishi Vedic Medicine. (3 hours credit)

Sarina focused the first course on cardiovascular disease because it is the single greatest killer among Americans, even greater than all cancers combined. Reducing the costs of this disease— over $117 billion dollars per year for treatment, medication, lost time at work, nursing and physician costs—is high on the list of priorities of the medical establishment.

"Ultimately," says Sarina, "we’d like insurers to pay for patients to learn the TM technique. Research has already shown that people who practice TM have lower blood pressure, require less medication and fewer doctor visits. If the doctors who take these courses recommend TM to their patients, then we can show that our courses for doctors result in better patient outcomes and lower healthcare costs."

Asked about her personal experience in creating this program, Sarina laughs, "This project was tailor-made for me. It’s been my joy to be able to do this. It took a lot of energy and focused attention, I can tell you. It took three years to get it through. But the medical content is so compelling, so strong—all the positive effects on health and on healthcare costs—we just have to get this information out to the doctors. When they look at it they say, ‘Yes, this makes perfect sense.’"

For more information on CME courses, call 888-349-8192

Cynthia Goldstone is an editor of Enlightenment magazine.