He wasn't open to the woo-woos: The Urban Zen Foundation

As a designer for Anne Klein, Donna Karan gave birth to her daughter Gabby the same week a collection of resort clothes was due, even as her boss Anne was succumbing to cancer. Donna's mother died on the day of a fashion show, and her husband died the same week as a show. Through it all, Donna kept working, later leaving Anne Klein to form Donna Karan New York. She got involved in philanthropic work when the AIDS epidemic broke out. It’s now the 25^th anniversary of the start of her fashion label, and two years since she founded the Urban Zen Foundation, located in a large art studio in Greenwich Village in New York City.

Long a New Age devotee, she was transformed by her husband Stephan Weiss' seven-year battle with lung cancer. She says, "Stephen wasn't open to what he would call my woo-woos – all the alternative methodology journeys I would take. But all of a sudden, when he got sick, he realized the importance of them. He did yoga four times a week; he had an Iyengar teacher who would come because he needed postural positions to help him breathe. We did acupuncture, Chinese medicine, massage and raindrop therapy with essential oils. It became obvious to me that this was what was missing in the hospital system."

She was also deeply affected by the struggle of her best friend, Lynn Kohlmann, who died from breast and brain cancer in 2008. "When you get the call, panic sets in: What do we do? As loved ones, we're not trained in health care. But when you're a patient or a loved one, you need a guide….So I asked, 'Who is putting together a movement that is changing the hospital system?' There was a void. No one was integrating" the health care.

Now her Urban Zen Foundation offers a 500-hour Urban Zen Integrative Therapy program that brings together health professionals and yoga teachers who are taught in-bed yoga, meditation, Reiki, aromatherapy, palliative care and nutrition. The participants in the first year, who include doctors, nurses, yoga instructors, yoga practitioners, physical therapists and other healthcare providers, complete 100 hours of clinical rotation at a hospital.

"Our healthcare system today needs help. This is a huge project, and there's a lot of work to do. I have to take it one day at a time. This is in its infancy stage. This is a movement that's being created. I want to join with all these brilliant people: Deepak Chopra, Mehmet Oz, Mark Hyman, Woodson Merrell. If we all join forces, we have a lot of people on this path. It's definitely a mission, and it's the most challenging thing I've ever done."

Thanks to Leslie Bennetts for her source article in the July 2010 issue of Town & Country.

If that little girl in the picture can do it: Forgiveness after a severe wartime burn

Perhaps the most unforgettable Vietnam-era photograph shows a screaming, naked nine-year-old girl, afire and fleeing from a napalm attack. She is now a grown woman.

Kim Phuc's story of her long road to forgiveness:

On June 8, 1972, I ran out from Cao Dai temple in my village, Trang Bang, South Vietnam; I saw an airplane getting lower and then four bombs falling down. I saw fire everywhere around me. Then I saw the fire over my body, especially on my left arm. My clothes had been burned off by fire.

I was nine years old but I still remember my thoughts at that moment: I would be ugly and people would treat me in a different way. My picture was taken in that moment on Road No. 1 from Saigon to Phnom Penh. After a soldier gave me some drink and poured water over my body, I lost my consciousness.

Several days after, I realized that I was in the hospital, where I spent 14 months and had 17 operations.

It was a very difficult time for me when I went home from the hospital. Our house was destroyed; we lost everything and we just survived day by day.

Although I suffered from pain, itching and headaches all the time, the long hospital stay made me dream to become a doctor. But my studies were cut short by the local government. They wanted me as a symbol of the state. I could not go to school anymore.
The anger inside me was like a hatred as high as a mountain. I hated my life. I hated all people who were normal because I was not normal. I really wanted to die many times.

I spent my daytime in the library to read a lot of religious books to find a purpose for my life. One of the books that I read was the Holy Bible.

In Christmas 1982, I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior. It was an amazing turning point in my life. God helped me to learn to forgive — the most difficult of all lessons. It didn't happen in a day and it wasn't easy. But I finally got it.
Forgiveness made me free from hatred. I still have many scars on my body and severe pain most days but my heart is cleansed.

Napalm is very powerful but faith, forgiveness and love are much more powerful. We would not have war at all if everyone could learn how to live with true love, hope and forgiveness.

If that little girl in the picture can do it, ask yourself: Can you?


Kim Phuc has started a foundation, Kim Foundation International, which aids children who are war victims. She is a patient advocate hero.

Advice: Live like Kim Phuc.

Read a story about the ways faith and prayer help healing.

Thanks to Anne Penman of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for the source story, rebroadcast today on National Public Radio.

At least my dog feels better about it: Michael J. Fox as patient advocate

Swaying from the unrelenting progression of Parkinson's disease, actor and patient advocate Michael J. Fox challenged the biotechnology industry Monday at its massive annual convention: "Who's funding innovation today?” Michael, who began a foundation to fund research into therapies for Parkinson's, criticized the industry for not placing enough emphasis on risk taking that he said could lead to therapies for 20,000 of the world's 30,000 identified diseases.

Not enough emphasis is being placed on the importance of translating basic scientific discoveries into new therapies, he said. For instance, the drug he takes is 40 years old. But the industry recently turned out a new antidepressant for dogs. My symptoms may not be getting better, but at least my dog feels better about it," he joked.

While patient advocates have always lobbied the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, Fox is emblematic of the greater voice and role they now hold. In the face of stagnant federal funding for basic scientific research, patient advocacy groups such as the Michael J. Fox Foundation are pouring millions of dollars into research through grants. "It's about spending the money more effectively," he said. He suggested the industry rethink its definition of success and focus less on capital return and getting on the cover of Science or Nature magazines - and instead judge success by the effect on patients' lives.

His words carried extra clout because his foundation gave $7.5 million through seven grant programs to 16 companies. His foundation aims to spend the money in the best possible way: helping take away some of the barriers or risks that prevent promising discoveries from moving down the long and expensive pipeline to commercial products.

Michael is putting his money where his heart is. He is leveraging his celebrity and his money to find a cure. His energy, commitment and imaginative steps toward this goal make him a patient advocate hero.

Advice: Look for ways you can use your assets and skills as an effective patient advocate. Be Like Mike.

Read another of our patient advocate hero stories, or Terri Somers’ source story.