Autumn 2004

Welcome to the autumn issue of Avenues. For more than fifteen years, the Pine Street Foundation has engaged in novel, ground breaking clinical research and the last few issues of Avenues have focused on this important work.

For this issue, we thought we would shine the spotlight on another major component of the Pine Street Foundation's mission: patient education and advocacy. With a rapidly expanding body of medical knowledge available to medical practitioners and patients alike, it is important for patients to become more active participants in the decision making process. As patients often receive vastly differing opinions from various health care practitioners and because there is rarely only one specific way to treat a given condition, patients should take the initiative to learn about their various options and make a decision based both on the opinions of their medical team and also on their own past experience; self-intuition can be a useful tool when choosing among different treatment options.

The basis for all of the Pine Street Foundation's programs is a focus on the individual, from person-specific treatment protocols in our clinical research to articles that teach patients how to empower themselves with information. For this reason, we have devoted this issue of Avenues to bringing patients some of the best medical resources to help locate the newest treatment options. Using this information will help patients learn about new choices, make more informed decisions, and navigate a complicated health care system.

CLINICAL TRIALS
This quarter's article in our Becoming Your Own Advocate series discusses clinical trials, specifically what they are, how to find them, the pros and cons of enrolling, and how to get help paying for study-related expenses. We also include various information boxes that provide online resources for finding trials, a discussion of insurance coverage, a note about Institutional Review Boards, and how to fill out an investigational new drug (IND) application. Click here to read this article now.

ALTERNATIVE MEDICAL CLINICAL TRIALS
There are many resources for locating conventional medical clinical trials, but there is currently no online database of alternative medical clinical trials. In this article, we describe a new initiative by the Pine Street Foundation that will build an important comprehensive database that patients can use to locate such trials. This unique resource will be free and openly available. Click here to read this article now.

PATIENT ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS
The affordability of drugs is a serious issue in the United States. One option for many people are Patient Assistance Programs (PAPs). In this article, guest contributor Richard J Sagall, MD, outlines these programs and offers some online resources for how to locate them. We hope these articles and resources will be useful tools for you. Click here to read this article now.

On behalf of the entire board, thank you for your continued generosity and support.

Best wishes,

Michael Broffman, LAc
Michael McCulloch, LAc, MPH

Top of Page

....................................................................................................................

Pine Street Foundation · 124 Pine Street · San Anselmo · California · 94960-2674
P: (415) 455-5878 · F: (415) 485-1065 · Email Us

DONATE NOW

Home
Programs
Avenues Newsletter
Becoming Your Own Advocate
Events
Search | Site Map

Your support is very important to us...93% of our funding comes from individuals like you! Click here to make a gift to the Pine Street Foundation online to help advance the field of integrated medicine for the benefits of those in need of better treatments.