![[Esther Sternberg, MD]](https://deptmedicine.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/styles/medium_image/public/sternbergslide_0.jpg?itok=0bjXPNUF "Esther Sternberg, MD")
Esther Sternberg, MD – internationally recognized for her discoveries proving the role of the brain’s stress response in arthritis, autoimmune and other debilitating illnesses – will be the keynote speaker at the University of Arizona Arthritis Center’s 15th Annual Living Healthy With Arthritis Conference.
The conference will take place Saturday, Jan. 28, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., at Banner – University Medical Center Tucson, DuVal Auditorium, 1501 N. Campbell Ave., Tucson. Registration and check-in begin at 8 a.m.
Dr. Sternberg serves the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine (AzCIM) as professor and director of research with joint appointments in the UA College of Medicine – Tucson and UA College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. She is the founding director of the UA Institute on Place and Wellbeing in the UA College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.
She also is a member of the UA Arthritis Center and serves on its scientific advisory committee. The UA Arthritis Center, a Center of Excellence at the UA College of Medicine – Tucson, is a research leader focused on identifying the causes of arthritis and developing improved technologies for diagnosing, measuring and treating the disease.
Dr. Sternberg will discuss Healing Spaces: The Science of Place and Wellbeing. Based on her book and PBS series of the same title, she will share an inside look at the rich nexus of mind and body, perception and place while immersing participants in the unique discoveries that have revealed the rich network of relationships between the senses, the emotions and the immune system. Her best-selling books, Healing Spaces: The Science of Place and Well-Being and The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions, are informative and scientifically based inspirations for the public and professionals alike, seeking answers to the complexities and 21st century frontiers of stress, place, healing and wellness.
Conference registration is $20 per person (members of the UA Arthritis Center Friends attend free) and includes morning refreshments and lunch. Free parking is available in the Banner - University Medical Center Tucson Visitor/Patient Parking Garage and in nearby UA Zone 1 lots. Early reservations are advised; spaces are limited and fill quickly. The registration deadline is Jan. 22. To register or for more information, please visit the UA Arthritis Center website at www.arthritis.arizona.edu/annual-conference, email livinghealthy@arthritis.arizona.edu, or call the UA Arthritis Center, 520-626-5040.
The Living Healthy With Arthritis Conference will cover information about health and services that help improve daily life and promote strengthening the mind and body to manage arthritis.
A film screening during lunch adds a new facet to this year’s event. Attendees can choose between The Connection: Mind Your Body and The Science of Healing, both featuring Dr. Sternberg. The Connection features scientists, researchers, writers and doctors, as well as remarkable true stories of people adding mind-body medicine to their “healing toolkit.” The film shows that emotions can impact the course of an illness for better or for worse and could even be the difference between life and death. In The Science of Healing, broadcast initially as a PBS special, Dr. Sternberg examines the role the brain plays in healing. The program addresses some critical questions: What is healing? Is there a mind/body connection? What happens in the brain when healing occurs? What role does emotion play? Dr. Sternberg uses her own story of developing inflammatory arthritis and recovery as a parallel to her investigation of what scientists are learning about the mind/body connection.
Breakout sessions promoting patient empowerment through management of arthritis will feature physicians and alternative therapy practitioners, including:
- C. Kent Kwoh, MD, director, UA Arthritis Center; chief, Division of Rheumatology; professor of medicine and medical imaging, UA College of Medicine – Tucson; The Charles A. L. and Suzanne M. Stephens Endowed Chair in Rheumatology.
- Michael P. Dohm, MD, FAAOS, ABOS, assistant professor, orthopaedic surgery, UA College of Medicine – Tucson.
- Donato Romagnolo, MSc, PhD, professor, nutritional and cancer biology, UA Department of Nutritional Sciences and the UA Cancer Center.
- Mike Siemens, MS, clinical director of exercise physiology, Canyon Ranch Health Resort.
- Eric P. Gall, MD, MACP, MACR, co-founder and former director, UA Arthritis Center; professor of medicine, UA College of Medicine – Tucson.
- Sandra S. Kramer, MA, associate librarian and assistant director, research/learning, UA Health Sciences Library; adjunct instructor, UA College of Nursing.
- Karma Kientzler, founding fitness director, Canyon Ranch Health Resort.
- Ernest R. Vina, MD, MS, assistant professor of medicine, UA College of Medicine – Tucson.
The conference is presented by the UA Arthritis Center and supported in part through the Susan and Saul Tobin Endowment for Research and Education in Rheumatology and Genentech.
About Dr. Sternberg
A board-certified rheumatologist, Esther Sternberg, MD, came to the UA from the National Institute of Mental Health at the National Institutes of Health, where she was chief of the Section on Neuroendocrine Immunology and Behavior. She also was director of the Integrative Neural Immune Program, NIMH/NIH, and co-chair of the NIH Intramural Program on Research in Women’s Health.
Dr. Sternberg’s research at the UA focuses on three areas: establishment of a biomarker laboratory that began at the NIH, aimed at development of a new sweat patch technology to measure patients’ immune and stress responses; design and implementation of tools to compare mechanisms of action and effectiveness of integrative versus conventional medicine approaches, including non-invasive measures of psychological, physiological, endocrine, nervous and immune systems’ health status; and the establishment of the Institute for Place and Well-Being at the UA, a joint venture among AzCIM, the UA Colleges of Medicine and Architecture and Landscape Architecture, and the UA Institute of the Environment. The Institute for Place and Well-Being will explore and measure the effects of built space and the physical and green environment on human health, emotions and spirituality.
Her popular books, The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions and Healing Spaces: The Science of Place and Well-Being, are informative and scientifically based and deal with the complexities and 21st century frontiers of stress, healing and wellness. Dr. Sternberg’s many honors include recognition by the National Library of Medicine as one of 300 women physicians who have changed the face of medicine. For more information, please visit www.esthersternberg.com
About the UA Health Sciences
The University of Arizona Health Sciences is the statewide leader in biomedical research and health professions training. The UA Health Sciences includes the UA Colleges of Medicine (Phoenix and Tucson), Nursing, Pharmacy and Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, with main campus locations in Tucson and the growing Phoenix Biomedical Campus in downtown Phoenix. From these vantage points, the UA Health Sciences reaches across the state of Arizona and the greater Southwest to provide cutting-edge health education, research, patient care and community outreach services. A major economic engine, the UA Health Sciences employs almost 5,000 people, has nearly 1,000 faculty members and garners more than $126 million in research grants and contracts annually. For more information: http://uahs.arizona.edu (Follow us: Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | LinkedIn)