 We are with Dr. David Leopold, medical director and an integrative physician at Hackensack Meridian Integrative Health and Medicine. Dr. Welcome. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Let's get it started by talking about simply what is integrative health and medicine. What is it? So that's a great question and it's one that I ponder often but basically in its most basic sense integrative health and medicine is really a combination of the traditional medical system with what we previously called things like complementary and alternative medicine. For me as a physician, first it comes down to optimizing well-being and health for any individual irrespective of what type of condition they have and that means that you can pull from different types of disciplines. So in some cases the best thing is going to be a pill or a medication or a surgical intervention. In some cases the best thing might be something like a mindfulness stress reduction or acupuncture maybe a well-chosen natural supplement. Sometimes it's simply exercise and nutrition. What are some of the common ailments or conditions that warrant these treatments? Sure. So the beauty of it is that it really can be applied to any medical condition and pain is something that we see a lot of. That's obviously a big issue and there's an incredible direct application of these ideas to treatment of pain, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis in some cases for certain cancer. You can alleviate some of the symptoms that people might be suffering from while they're going through treatment. I believe strongly in conventional treatment but during treatment there are still things like mindfulness that can help people with either with their sleep or getting through difficult times. So really it's any situation that we would encounter when these things are appropriately applied can be utilized for anything. So for a lot of people this is probably a new approach for them. So what are the questions they should ask or the steps they should take to make sure they're heading in the right direction? Sure. Well the first thing would be again I strongly advocate conventional medical approach. So in integrative medicine we work with our traditionally trained physicians. It has to be a partnership. It has to be transparent. So I think for me that's the most important component. Then I would make sure that the people with whom you're working have a good understanding of conditions and the interventions that they're using. So you want to make sure that your people are quite well trained. There are boards now for integrative medicine. There are very well trained people out there and I think that's paramount. Do you have any events coming up that might help us? We do. We have multiple events. We offer mindfulness based stress reduction courses Mondays and Fridays. We have several locations. We offer yoga every Tuesday morning through several locations throughout New Jersey February's heart month. So we have a free event on February 20th at Jackson Health Village. And anybody can check out our website for multiple events that we have. And if people want to schedule an appointment or they want to get more info, the best way for them to do that. Sure. The best thing would be to call our office which is 732-263-7999 to schedule appointments. For more information they can also go to hackandsecretionhealth.org slash integrative medicine. Dr. David Leopold. Thank you. Nice to see you again. I'm David Leopold. I'm a new physician at HackandSac Meridian Integrative Health and Medicine. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me.