Save the Last Dance

While Dr. Larry Chan and Dr. Fred Meinzer have a keen interest in dance, you won’t find any of them executing a pirouette or grand plie. This medical team prefers to let the ballet performers they treat backstage shine in the spotlight instead.

“We love dance; that’s how it started off,” says Chan about the partnership their clinic, Integrative Healing Arts, has with Ballet British Columbia.

The doctor remembers a very important conversation he had in 1988 with then general manager of the ballet Bob McGifford. “(The dancers) have so many physical injuries from dance and in terms of the work we do for injuries, we thought we’d be a good match,” Chan recalls.

The team at Integrative Healing carries on this special relationship with the dancers to this day. Chan adds that they try to rotate shifts so they can catch as many of the performances as they can.

Emily Molnar, current artistic director of Ballet BC, says that over her 20-year career as a professional dancer she has been a huge believer of naturopathic medicine for its focus on addressing the health and wellbeing of the mind and body.

“I feel it gets to the root of the problem in ways that Western medicine cannot — allowing the body to use its intelligence to create long-term health, as opposed to instant relief,” she says.

Remembering her biggest injury, an ankle sprain, Molnar says working with Chan helped her recover quickly, without losing strength. She adds that Chan helped rebalance her strength and alignment, bring down inflammation, and helped her achieve a healthy and quick recovery with little pain and without the use of medication.

“His diagnosis is always sound, caring and very clear,” says Molnar.

Chan and Meinzer have helped treat many famous names in the business, including Karen Kain and Margie Gillis, to name a few. Over the years, the Integrative Healing team has watched from behind the scenes as many budding dancers evolved into stars on the stage.

“We’ve been working closely with the ballet dancers for many years, and we have had the joy of providing co-ordinated health-care resources through our centre,” says Chan.

But he jokes again that he isn’t a dancer himself. “It definitely didn’t start from my ability. If you could see me, I can’t dance,” says Chan. “But I am just enthralled to watch them dance because they make it look so effortless. This is what draws me.”

The downside to perfecting such graceful moves, he notes, is the amount of wear and tear they endure physically. “They do accumulate a lot of stress on the body,” he says.

Some of the most common ailments are lower body injuries, which typically include knee, hip and biomechanical injuries in joints. While these injuries are obvious ones, there are also sprains and strains, pulls and tears, and “you have to treat them or diagnose them properly,” says Chan.

Whether you’re a ballet dancer on stage, or seeking a holistic treatment to your health needs, the team at Integrative Healing Arts provide an approach to wellbeing that integrates modern science with traditional healing arts.

By incorporating not only naturopathic medicine, but also a combination of chiropractic medicine, acupuncture, massage therapy and a medical spa, among many more personalized services, the staff helps patients achieve health and vitality on the road to looking and feeling their best for life. •
 

To learn more about the services of Integrative Healing Arts, visit integrative.ca.