Programs

  • Program 1 [2019]

    Our Section 501(c)(3) recognized educational nonprofit Plant-based Prevention Of Disease, Inc. (P-POD) produces an annual national conference each May, focused upon the health professions while welcoming the public, and exploring evidence-based nutrition in the prevention and even treatment of cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and other chronic diseases. Our 2019 event in Raleigh NC, continuing a theme of The FUTURE of Healthcare Begins with NUTRITION, brought together about 280 individuals, including paid registrants, speakers, other board members, regular staff, volunteers and scholarship recipents. 17 hours of continuing education credits were awarded to physicians, osteopaths, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, registered nurses, registered dietitians, physical therapists, acupuncturists, pharmacists, psychologists, certified health educators, certified health coaches and candidates for the Diplomate credentialing examination administered by the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine. We do emphasize strongly the relevance of the whole team of health care practitioners in addressing and influencing the lifestyles and chronic disease incidence of the public. We continued to develop and champion the attributes of our conference that make us quite unique, such as our nonprofits refusal to accept any funding, sponsorship or influence at all from commercial sources, and our maintaining more affordable registration prices than would be found for nearly all accredited professional conferences in the U.S. Via the latter we have intended that a broad diverse spectrum of grassroots attendees and community-level health promoters may participate, and we have now sought to expand this accessibility by launching a scholarship program. Shortly before the 2019 conference, we raised some initial dedicated donations from 7 individuals and groups, and supported attendance by 8 scholarship recipients, while setting aside remaining funds toward continuing and gradually expanding the well-received program for 2020 onward.Our presenters, who are distinguished researchers, clinicians and educators, always reflect diversity demographically and a wide range of backgrounds, professional disciplines and perspectives. Our 28 speakers for 2019 were headlined by a triple keynote session for the 3rd annual Denis Burkitt, MD Memorial Lecture, 3 presentations on Womens Health and Chronic Disease Risk, and Reproductive Health, by Reed Mangels, PhD RDN, Amanda E. McKinney, MD CPE FACLM FACOG and Linda Carney, MD. Their content spanned cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, Alzheimers Disease and dementias, cancer, PMS, diabetes, depression, dysfunctional uterine bleeding, infertility and pregnancy outcomes.Our Distinguished Researcher Series was likewise represented by a triple cohort of speakers spanning extensive subject matter: David J. A. Jenkins, MD PhD DSc on "The Need to Swap Animal Proteins for Plant Proteins, for Health and the Environment", Hana Kahleova, MD PhD on "Resetting Your Body Clock and Boosting Your Metabolism with Plant-based Nutrition", especially pertinent to metabolic determinants of diabetes risk, and Lawrence H. Kushi, ScD on "Can What You Eat Influence Your Risk and Prognosis of Cancer?". Our Annual Clinicians Round Table reconfigured itself around a core priority of most practitioners attending the conference, via the topic of A Family Practice Physician, Cardiologist, Registered Nurse and Registered Dietitian Discuss Together How They Each Have Re-dedicated Themselves to Hands-on Facilitating of Lifestyle Behavior Change. Personal perspectives on day-by-day clinical efforts against preventable (or reversible) chronic disease were provided interactively by Denise Dysard, RN BSN, Brian Asbill, MD FACC, Parul Kharod, MS RDN LDN (all from nearby in North Carolina) and Ana M. Negrn, MD.The conference finale was an inspiring screening of the film Code Blue -- Redefining the Practice of Medicine, about the journey of our frequent speaker Saray Stancic, MD FACLM from infectious disease specialist physician to disabled multiple sclerosis patient through nutrition and exercise based recovery to becoming an evidence-based lifestyle medicine practitioner and visionary. The power of prevention, the possibilities for chronic disease reversal, and the need for establishment of nutrition and lifestyle medicine as components of medical school curriculum, were thoroughly explored in the film, and in subsequent discussion with its producers and principals.We always turn some attention toward how we in our professional practices and our activism can promote a better and more equitable society, partly through our P-POD Annual Public Policy Round Table, which considered How to Navigate Successfully a Progressive and Evidence-Based Nutrition Message in a Challenging Food Policy Environment. It examined historical counterproductive effects of many federal food policies, and conflicts of interest encountered in policy creation, while illustrating possibilities for action and constructive change at national, state and local levels, with particular attention to policy accomplishments within the Navajo (Din) Nation. This was presented by Amy Lanou, PhD, Gloria Ann Begay, MAE and Susan Levin, MS RDN CSSD. Another presentation by our board member Milton Mills, MD covered in depth "The Impact of Historical Racial and Ethnic Bias on the Health Profiles of Minority Communities". The sustainability component of the presentation by keynoter David J. A. Jenkins, MD PhD DSc was echoed by board member Kathy Pollard, MS who offered "The Sustainability Factor Do Healthcare Professionals Have a Responsibility to Promote Sustainable Plant-Based Dietary Patterns that Protect the Planet?". We have tried to observe some degree of environmental awareness in reducing avoidable waste in the physical production of the event, and accordingly the first-ever t-shirts celebrating our nonprofit were introduced at our 2019 conference, having been printed in a small solar-powered studio using only water-based acrylic ink, water, and heat.... avoiding oil-based or plastic-derived inks and subsequent chemical press washes, toxic spray adhesives, VOCs and other chemicals. The shirt material utilized was a 100% recycled cotton-poly blend derived from garment industry scraps and recycled water bottles. The shirts did sell out immediately. We also continued for a third year to offer an option for extremely affordable walking-distance campus housing, a rare opportunity for a professional conference, and one which spares the energy-consumption burdens of commuting while further enhancing opportunities for interaction and cross-pollination within the conference "community".
    Geographies
    Not indicated
    Dates
    Jan 1, 2019 – Dec 31, 2019
    Source
    990
    No causes provided
    No populations provided
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  • Program 1 [2020]

    Our Section 501(c)(3) recognized educational nonprofit organization Plant-based Prevention Of Disease, Inc. (P-POD) produces an annual national conference focused upon the health professions while welcoming the public, and exploring evidence-based nutrition and lifestyle medicine in the prevention and even treatment of cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and other chronic diseases. Our July 2020 event, forced to be conducted in a virtual online format, continued a theme of The FUTURE of Healthcare Begins with NUTRITION, bringing together about 320 individuals, including paid registrants, speakers, other board members, regular staff, volunteers, scholarship recipients and a few dozen members of the public permitted to register separately for two-to-four hour segments. We do emphasize strongly the relevance of the whole team of health care practitioners in addressing and influencing the lifestyles and chronic disease incidence of patients and community members. 20 hours of continuing education credits were awarded to physicians, osteopaths, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, registered nurses, registered dietitians, physical therapists, pharmacists, psychologists, certified health educators, certified health coaches and candidates for the Diplomate credentialing examination administered by the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine. We provided access to four additional hours of agenda programming without charge, making 24 in all, to try to accommodate participation of attendees who ended up unexpectedly (due to COVID-19) joining from home in their own time-zones ranging from Pacific to Eastern and beyond.We continued to develop and champion the attributes of our conference that make us quite unique, such as our nonprofits refusal to accept any funding, sponsorship or influence at all from commercial sources, and our maintaining more affordable registration prices than would be found for nearly all accredited professional conferences in the U.S. Via the latter we have intended that a broad diverse spectrum of grassroots attendees and community-level health promoters may participate, and we have sought to expand this accessibility by continuing the scholarship program we launched in 2019. 11 individuals, racially diverse and strongly representing indigenous communities, were awarded scholarships in 2020, and we intend to increase such opportunities annually in the future. As in the past, we also uniquely continued to post online all verbal comments made by any attendees about the conference overall. Our presenters, who are distinguished researchers, clinicians and educators, always reflect diversity demographically and a wide range of backgrounds, professional disciplines and perspectives. Our 36 speakers for 2020 were headlined by the 4th annual Denis Burkitt Memorial Lectures, made up of three keynote presentations about Resetting Paradigms of Medical Practice, by cardiologist Baxter Montgomery, MD FACC, American College of Lifestyle Medicine founding President John H. Kelly, Jr., MD MPH DipABLM and lifestyle medicine visionary Saray Stancic, MD DipABLM. The annual Distinguished Researchers Series continued with Hana Kahleova, MD PhD, regarding diabetes reversal and beta cell regeneration, and with Stephen J. O'Keefe, MD(UK) MSc MRCS LRCP, regarding the gut microbiome and colon cancer prevention. Clinical focus areas included chronic kidney disease, Alzheimers and dementia (with Dean Sherzai, MD PhD MPH and Ayesha Sherzai, MD MAS), and pediatrics (with Yami Cazorla-Lancaster, DO MPH MS FAAP DipABLM). As always, P-POD covered food justice and access issues, now with Milton Mills, MD, Lauren Ornelas, BA and Lisa Smith, MBA, and featured 7 Registered Dietitian Nutritionists addressing professional ethics and avoidance of weight shaming/stigma (with Taylor Wolfram, MS RDN LDN), optimizing plant-based nutrition (with Brenda Davis, RD), and detailing diets and meal plans that support disease prevention and mental health. Several presentations explored healthcare practitioners' escalated challenges of combating chronic diseases in this pandemic era.The conference was opened by a separately attendable session with Kim A. Williams, Sr., MD MACC FASNC FAHA, former President of the American College of Cardiology, presenting Can We Put Cardiologists out of Business in 10 Years?, followed by a round table, How We Can All Be Smarter 10 Years from Now in Combating Heart Disease, Diabetes and Cancer, where he was joined by both of the Distinguished Researchers and by longtime Veteran's Administration practitioner and patient-centered care innovator Denise Dysard, MSN RN.With seven years of experience and over 100 different conference speakers behind us, our nonprofit contemplates strategic plans for the future. We believe we will reach and serve more healthcare professionals in a more effective way by expanding beyond a single event per year, and by condensing each one to a more manageable schedule of hours. We will seek to boost modestly the size of our paid staff from its 2020 level of four part-time positions, and will increase the size and range-of-experience of our ten-person board of directors. We have since 2018 been approved by the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine as one of the very few conferences satisfying the In-person Continuing Medical Education prerequisite for their professional examination candidates, and we expect to emphasize more forthrightly our support for their credentialing process and our embrace of the six pillars of lifestyle medicine practice: healthful eating of whole plant-based food; beneficial physical activity; strategies to manage stress; forming and maintaining relationships; improving sleep; avoiding risky substances. We will gradually move toward a P-POD Conference curriculum, defining a distinct and comprehensive array of educational content areas that we will seek to cover consistently in every event. We will continue to navigate the extraordinarily chaotic and disrupted landscape of producing educational conferences during an era where the future pathway of a pandemics evolution cannot be predicted.
    Geographies
    Not indicated
    Dates
    Jan 1, 2020 – Dec 31, 2020
    Source
    990
    No causes provided
    No populations provided
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  • P-POD Conferences

    As of 2024, the Section 501(c)(3) recognized nonprofit educational organization Plant-based Prevention Of Disease, Inc. (P-POD) has now produced 46 days of fully accredited conferences, and has awarded 284 hours of live professional continuing education credits, in 18 conferences since its 2014 founding. All of this has been accomplished while always accepting ZERO funding, sponsorship or influence from commercial sources.The P-POD Conferences share evidence with healthcare practitioners, educators and students, but also with the general public, regarding best practices to help prevent or reverse chronic disease through nutrition and lifestyle changes, while seeking to reduce inequitable disparities in healthcare access and outcomes. The P-POD motto has long been the future of healthcare begins with nutrition, but accumulating evidence shows that the other pillars of Lifestyle Medicine can also make a substantial contribution to disease reduction: beneficial physical activity; strategies to manage stress; forming and maintaining social relationships; improving sleep; avoiding risky substances. P-POD was the third conference event producer in the world accredited for Lifestyle Medicine credentialing purposes that remains so certified today.P-POD responded to the steady shifting of practitioner demand toward the virtual mode of continuing education, by providing virtual access to all 6 conference days in 2024, while retaining in-person attendance access for 2 of them, which were produced on June 1-2 at the most frequent past site, McKimmon Conference Center of North Carolina State University in Raleigh. In this, the third year that hybrid conferencing was utilized, overall virtual attendance for the year continued to increase substantially. As in the past, all conference days were accredited for providing professional continuing education credits to physicians, family physicians, physician associates, nurse practitioners, registered dietitians, registered nurses and various other practitioners, a very broad range of professional disciplines throughout the entire healthcare team. P-POD assembles a curated speaker roster of distinguished clinicians, researchers and educators who also reflect societys diversity. We believe that any nutrition conference should represent Registered Dietitian Nutritionists well among its speakers, and P-POD has done that: 84 RDNs in 18 conferences since founding. One generic indicator of the professional caliber of the presenters is the fact that 42% of P-PODs speakers over the last ten conferences have been honored as Fellows of prestigious professional organizations, such as: American College of Cardiology; American Society of Nephrology; American Academy of Pediatrics; American College of Physicians; American Academy of Nurse Practitioners; American College of Endocrinology; American College of Osteopathic Internists; American College of Sports Medicine; Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions; American Society of Nuclear Cardiology; Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics; American Heart Association; American Society of Addiction Medicine; American College of Lifestyle Medicine; and others. Additional data about the last ten conferences shows that 47% of the speakers have been certified Lifestyle Medicine Diplomates, 29% have been African Americans and for each one the majority have been women, three facts that further set us apart from most professional conferences.The 2024 speaker roster for our 6 days included 5 individuals chosen as keynote speakers: Qadira M. Ali, MD MPH FAAP DipABLM; Yami Cazorla-Lancaster, DO MPH MS FAAP DipABLM NBC-HWC; Lily Correa, MPH RDN DipACLM; Mahima Gulati, MD FACE MSc FACLM DipABLM ECNU; and Liana Lianov, MD MPH FACPM FACLM DipABLM. They covered a remarkable range of subjects: diabetes remission; PCOS and women's hormonal disorders; employee wellness and nutrition; community action against family food insecurity; plant-based nutrition for children; sleep; and positive psychology. Our recent tradition of offering compelling interactive-discussion duets between renowned visionary presenters, continued in 2024 with Columbus Batiste, MD FACC FSCAI and Neha Pathak, MD FACP DipABLM on Using Lifestyle Medicine as a Means to Address Social and Environmental Determinants of Health and Beth Frates, MD FACLM DipABLM and Elizabeth Winings, DNP APRN PMHNP DipACLM on The Mental Health Implications of Social Connection or Loneliness. One of our longest-standing traditions is the Annual Women's Health Empowerment Round Table, which was held 3 times on 3 weekends, once as a round table trio and twice as a duet.A unique touching moment in our 2024 in-person conference was presenting P-PODs Lifetime Achievement Award to Michael Klaper, MD DipABLM at his 4th P-POD speaking occasion since 2017. Dr. Klapers many-decades-long career in practice and as an educator followed a 1972 medical degree and advanced training in surgery, anesthesiology, orthopedics and obstetrics, and he has tirelessly advocated for integrating nutrition into medical practice, medical training and disease prevention awareness. He may be unequaled as an international lecturer and visionary evidence-gatherer regarding the causality of chronic disease and the preventive attributes of whole food plant-based diets, with particular attention to subject matter such as allergenic and autoimmune processes, postprandial effects of dietary fats, and the health and disruptions of the gut environment and microbiome.Overall, our 2024 educational content thoroughly and in a balanced way represented the innovative P-POD curriculum of 15 Core Topic Areas that is detailed at core.p-pod.org. Cardiologists appeared in 6 presentations this year, and Core Topics that focused on specific types of chronic disease, such as Cancer prevention and survivorship, Diabetes prevention, remission or reversal or Kidney health and chronic kidney disease, were each fully addressed by at least 3 presentations in the 3 weekends, as were Core Topics related to pediatrics or the microbiome. Our newest Core Topic, and one of very high attendee interest, Practitioners' own self-care vs. burnout and chronic disease risks, as always was taken into account as speakers explored subjects of many kinds, but also was dealt with directly and deeply in presentations such as Mobilizing Lifestyle Medicine Pillars to Reduce Chronic Stress and Enhance Quality of Life and Serving Others AND Preserving Self.The Exercise physiology, and movement in daily lifestyle Core Topic, also much in demand, was covered in each weekend from varying standpoints, such as the health benefits of strength building, the cellular mechanisms underlying exercise-as-medicine, and how to support physical activity optimally with plant-based nutrition. The first Core Topic in our published list, Promoting healthful behaviors at the community-program and primary-care levels, was addressed in various practical detailed accounts of how successful real-world community chronic disease reduction clinics and teaching kitchens launched and evolved their work, but also in presentations about nuanced guidance of sustainable patient behavior change, sometimes drawing upon approaches like motivational interviewing, as in Meeting Patients Where They Are At: Setting Realistic Expectations about Lifestyle Change in Support of Mental and Physical Health.Finally, as in all P-POD Conferences, there were multiple thought-provoking presentations and discussions about the key Core Topic Health equity, vulnerable populations, and access disparities for care and nutritious-food, such as:**Diabetes in Historically Marginalized Communities, and the Use of Plant-based Nutrition and Lifestyle Medicine to Reduce Health Disparities and Improve Health Outcomes**Utilization of Culturally Adapted Tools to Achieve Nutrition Equity and Improve Clinical Outcomes in Diabetes and Chronic Disease Care**Can Practitioners, Educators and Public Officials Work Together to Redesign Institutions in Support of Health Equity and Community Nutrition Advancement?Upon our founding, it was suggested that one of the greatest contributions our new nonprofit could make would be to offer practitioners educational content about chronic disease prevention at prices more affordable than is the norm for professional continuing education, and we have intended never to forget that, as we try to reach a broad spectrum of practitioners and students. We have also awarded 59 full need-based scholarships to our conferences from 2019 through 2024. Within the next couple of years, we will resume fundraising to replenish our dedicated scholarship fund that will soon be depletedThis report will close with the comments of one 2024 physician-attendee: "As for the conference, wow!!!! I can honestly say that this is the best and most informative conference I have ever been to (and Ive been to many conferences in my 10+ years in practice!). I have never met s
    Geographies
    Not indicated
    Dates
    Jan 1, 2024 – Dec 31, 2024
    Source
    990
    No causes provided
    No populations provided
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    $125.1K