Thursday, March 6, 2008

First do no Harm

February 4, 2005 I wrote a letter to the editor regarding my concerns about our healthcare community in Ottumwa.
Today, I want to give the people of Ottumwa an update.
On April 06, 2005 my wife gave birth to a wonderful baby girl (Olivia). She was delivered at the Ottumwa hospital. Before she was born; one of the hospital nurses asked my wife and I if we wanted our daughter vaccinated with Hepatitis B. My wife and I did not want our baby vaccinated at that time and signed a document to this. I explained to the nurse why we did not want her vaccinated. I told her that there has been documented studies indicating a greater risk for SIDS and AUTISM among children being vaccinated under the age of 2.
Within 2hours after Olivia was born, they vaccinated her with Hepatitis B.
We were told by hospital officials that the form that we signed was difficult for the medical staff to read. The Director of the medical staff told me that there was no risk to our daughter.
On April 20, 2005 Olivia stopped breathing. I rushed her to the hospital were she experienced two more episodes in the ER. She was kept in the hospital for the day and observed without incidence. For the next month our little girl had chronic breathing problems with no explanation from the hospital for her episode. We were constantly worrying that it was going to happen again. The hospitals doctor did ask my wife and I if we knew CPR, just incase it happened again.
The Hospital continues to claim no liability in the incident that almost cost our 2 week old daughter her life. Since she survived and has no recognizable brain damage the hospitals position is “no harm no foul.“ Malpractice laws disagree.
Last year the Department for Health and Human Services requested that all healthcare providing agencies report any hospitalizations, ER visits, and deaths following vaccinations. The report is to be filed with the Centers for Disease Control.
My wife and I gave an ORHC doctor the document to be filled out and submitted.
It was never done.
I contacted the Centers for Disease Control and filed the document.
*The CDC is now investigating the incident as a possible adverse reaction to the vaccine.
There are over 200,000 reports every year of possible vaccine reactions in children.
Over the past month there have been many reports regarding vaccine reactions in the mainstream press.
As of July 25, 2005 the Hospital position: “Based upon the information available to us, including literature which disputes the claim that adverse affects occur with childhood immunizations, and no additional claim of present injury to the child it does not appear that a financial settlement, of any amount, is warranted under the circumstances.”
On April 20, 2005 I rushed my 2 week old daughter to the ER because she was not breathing.
One of the possible adverse effects of Hepatitis B vaccines is AIRWAY OBSTRUCTION.
I encourage both the medical community and there patients to become more educated in the risks associated with the treatments that are provided.
***FIRST DO NO HARM!
Dr. Charles D. Coram

20 Year Journey

Ottumwa lucky to have a specialist like Dr. Coram. On one of my annual visits to Fairfield, my son told me about hockey teammates who had career-ending injuries until they were treated by Dr. Charles Coram, a chiropractor in Ottumwa. The teammates were soon playing hockey again and attributed their recovery solely to Dr. Coram’s efforts. This got my attention.
My son suggested that I see Dr. Coram because of 20 years of extreme leg pain from chronic sciatica that recently prevented me from sleeping in bed for more than an hour at a time. I agreed, and after my first treatment was able to sleep in bed all night!
I live in Ann Arbor, Mich. (a nine-and-one-half-hour drive from Ottumwa each way), and as a recently retired professor at the University of Michigan, have seen many specialists over the past 15 years — doctors including neurologists and other specialists, MDs, physical therapists, even an acupuncturist — who have all treated me for this problem without much success.
I am now traveling to Ottumwa each month to be treated by Dr. Coram, who is the only medical professional who has been able to provide relief for my problem or any improvement in my overall condition. Each of my treatments has taken two-to-four hours, but has been unbelievably helpful. I see a noticeable improvement in my overall condition each time I meet with Dr. Coram. Ottumwa is very lucky to have such a helpful health specialist in its community.
Layman E. Allen
Professor of Law, Emeritus
Law School, University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Mich.

Dr. Coram

I first met Dr. Charles D. Coram in 1999. At that time, I was the CEO of a thriving Mental Health Center serving many communities in Iowa. I worked with ideas and people, a mentally challenging career that involved long hours and little physical exercise. This lifestyle caught up with me in my 50’s and I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. An RN, who had found relief from her own physical pain by treatments from Dr. Coram, sent me to him. From the first visit I was impressed with the thoroughness of his taking the time to know me as a person. His respect for my knowing myself, giving me the dignity of allowing me to know my own body, which I had inhabited for 50 years, was refreshing. I believe we all have a God given energy and awareness whether we listen to it or not. Dr. Coram used traditional manipulation and nontraditional as he helped me stretch, move and rearrange the energy in my body. I don’t have the words for what his treatment was like; I just know I got better. I have not returned to a traditional rheumatologist, as I know I do not have the soreness or the pressure point tenderness that produced the diagnosis in the first place.
Dr. Coram uses acupuncture, energy work, Reiki, manual manipulations and a type of yoga stretching. He truly is on the cutting edge, one of those doctors who do not follow the mold. He is not a “hothead” with a chip on his shoulder to prove others wrong but a thinker of tomorrow. He is always asking himself, “What are we missing, why is this person not improving, what knowledge does the person have about themselves that I as the doctor cannot know, no matter how thorough the examination?” Truly he integrates different medicines and philosophies without sacrificing his own integrity.
Dr. Coram practices what he preaches, integrity, flexibility and healthy life choices while grounded in a core set of beliefs. He willingly shares with others his insights and observations from his own practice, works within schools, hospitals and the community. As I come close to my retirement years I am pleased to see the next generation opening up to catalyst type practices which involve a total health concept. The concern for the person, the courage to change from traditional paths, while honoring what tradition can do, keeping vision alive while maintaining a full time patient load is not easy. Somehow, Dr. Coram manages to do this. We are longer a society where the doctor knows best. People are too well read and informed for that naivety. I believe most consumers want a doctor who will answer questions and truly hear what the consumer is requesting or saying. Dr. Coram integrates different types of healing, sees the value of each and is open to what his client wants or would respond to for treatment. His own visionary approach to medicine inspires others, his peers, community leaders and his patients.
Having known Dr. Coram personally, both as a community leader myself and one of his patients, I am confident that Dr. Coram will use his gifts of healing in a thoughtful planned way to advance medicine using a total health concept. Maneuvering through traditional models of medicine and finding the respect from the medical community is not an easy task.. Many visionary people have become disheartened and give in to the pressure of “learned minds” in traditional medicine. Dr. Coram has a resiliency to keep on keeping on, perhaps in part, because of his own deep belief that health and healing are so much more than our traditional ways can comprehend. Although no longer living in Iowa, I keep in touch with several people active in the community. I have seen and heard the respect and creditability Dr. Coram is earning.
Sincerely,
Joyce C. Bromley MA, LPC, LCSW
Kansas City, MO.
(816)517-9067

Healer

Dr. Coram has so altered the conversations in our community hospital that they have moved from a rigid pharmacological/surgical paradigms toward teams of therapists, community activists, patients, employers, employees, physicians, chiropractors, acupuncturists, massage therapists, religious leaders, nutritionists, and many others banding together. He is similar to many truly effective leaders, organizing and guiding but often letting others assume the credit. When conversations were initiated it was always Dr. Coram behind the introduction of change. He was driven. He would not put the topic down. He had serious resistance. He had patients and his own convictions as his allies. He had all of the arrayed rigidity of a small Midwestern conservative community, hidebound by tradition, enveloped by its distance from the centers of change and with the certainty of a righteous indignation of the truth of its position, allayed against him. He continued anyway. I think it was his patients’ needs and the angles of his better nature. He has a lot of angles and a lot of better nature, and you guessed it, it is hard to get in to see him.
What does our community want most for Charles Coram? Cloning, Seriously. I have discussed this often with him, we need to train young doctors. Dr. Coram begins with the dysfunctions of spirit, of hope, of dignity of knowledge of what personhood could mean in the patients he sees. He does this gently as he massages and stretches and repositions a few facets. In an hour spent talking to a patient while really caring for their needs he learns their needs, their worries and fears. He was a nurse before being a chiropractor before being an integrative medicine physician. When he continues to care for and about his patients he leads them to new insights of their potential. How much more likely are we to listen when we are relaxed? How about when we feel we have been able to express ourselves in the important worries of health, family and what motivates us? I have found Dr. Coram’s patients returning to me stating what could be called unintended testimonies. They express newfound strengths physically and emotionally. I wish I could send every patient to him (he is just too busy). So many actually begin to follow the advice received. This is a change in listening. This is real change. I, as a physician, listen better and more completely.
What scuttles our barely floating lives when we feel we are paddling as hard as we can? Often it is a lack of faith that there is another way; it begins with renewed belief in our power to change. Breaking dependence may be the very most disabling agenda in a life. Dependencies can be toward others, habits, harmful realms of thought. It seems Charles incorporates example, sincerity and his message of people realizing purpose they must find. Some patients seem to have epiphanies. Some patients are not ready for these messages, but they still receive benefit.
Let me give my final and greatest accolade (surely you think I have said it all). When Christ returns to the Passover feast he washes the disciples feet. He shows us by example one last time what he seems to expect of mere human beings like Charles, like myself. I have the great comfort of having Charles Coram as my Dr. and friend. My wish for you, and for everyone, is that we can train more young people to be like this man. I sincerely wish a great gift for you: may you have a Charles Coram in your life.
Sincerely, Marc E. Hines MD