Kshettry

MINNEAPOLIS — Dr. Vibhu R. Kshettry led a recent study that integrated alternative therapies with modern medicine for heart surgery patients, and the results were music to his ears — as well as the ears of his patients.

Kshettry, a senior cardiovascular surgeon with the Minneapolis Heart Institute at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, was the head of a study that revealed heart surgery patients given alternative therapies — like light massages and listening to music — experienced less pain and tension pre- and post-surgery.  

The study was published in the January 2006 edition of the "Annals of Thoracic Surgery," and it was titled "Complementary Alternative Medical Therapies for Heart Surgery Patients: Feasibility, Safety, and Impact."

The study began in 2001 and used 104 randomized patients, who volunteered to be a part of the study for free. Kshettry said the study took two years to complete, about 18 months to analyze the data — with an independent statistician to assure there were no biases — and was accepted for publication in June 2005.

Kshettry was the lead author of the study, which was funded by the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation.

"This is one of the very few randomized trials looking at alternative therapies," he said.

All of the 104 men and women involved in the study underwent standard, open-heart surgery. They were placed in two groups: those who received alternative therapy, and those who did not. Kshettry said neither group of patients knew whether they were receiving real or false treatment. 

The patients who received alternative therapy were given relaxation training before surgery, which included guided imagery and 30 minutes of gentle touch or light massages. During this period, these patients also established a relationship with healing coaches, who helped them after surgery.

The first two days after heart surgery, the patients who received alternative therapy listened to music — light instrumental, classical or country were their choices — for 20 minutes a day. These patients also received more gentle touch or light massage when they were released from the intensive care unit after surgery. 

The result of this study showed that patients who received alternative therapy experienced significantly lower pain and tension.

Kshettry originally began studying the use of alternative therapy with heart surgery patients in 1999, with the program known as "Healing of the Heart," which was funded by the George Family Foundation in Minneapolis for $250,000. 

"The premise of [Healing of the Heart Program] was that 'can we integrate some of the mind-body healing therapies in post-operative care of patients undergoing major heart surgical procedures,'" he said.

Kshettry said the era of alternative medicine in the United States has been around for over 10 years, and consumers have been "bombarded" with information, but there has been little information, in terms of scientific facts, to back up alternative therapy.

"Many of these [alternative medicines] are really not tested, they are just kind of presumed to work just because something has worked in ancient times. The implication is that it should work in the modern times. Now I, being a scientist and a modern-trained physician, my so-called inquiring mind says, 'Well it's true that many of these therapies have been used and utilized for a number of years, but there is very little scientific evidence and basis to really justify them,'" he said.

The difference between Kshettry's study and what has been done in the past is how he is using alternative therapy. Alternative therapies are not a substitution to care — but an addition.

"So the premises was that we will offer these therapies not as an alternative to modern treatment but they will be integrated with modern treatment," he said. "That's the difference."

This difference was also noticed by Dr. Gerald Fletcher, a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., and a spokesman for the American Heart Association.

"I do think there is something to what he's doing," Fletcher said.

Fletcher added that this is an important area to look at, and the future of this kind of treatment is not only open, but "reasonably optimistic." He said the National Institutes of Health is beginning to fund alternative therapy.

However, Fletcher said there were also difficulties in alternative therapy, like measuring pain, which varies from person to person.

Kshettry said he knows medication is going to help all of these patients, but he also does not underestimate the use of alternative therapy to help someone during heart surgery, which he said is a life-changing event. "It's a very stressful time for the patients, it's a very stressful time for the families," he said.

"There is something to be said about re-discovering yourself and re-connecting with your own inner self, which would be mean meaningful in calming you and facing life-changing events than drugs and all," he said.

Kshettry is originally from New Delhi, India, but he has been living outside of India for the last 32 years in the United Kingdom and the United States. Kshettry received his medical degree from Punjab University in India.

He has traveled back to Bangalore, India, over the last five years to support cardiac surgery programs, and he is the founder of the International Cardiovascular Outreach Research and Education program, which is a teaching program for developing nations.

Kshettry believes that physicians should be connected to patients, and that these people should always come first in their job. 

"I think the art of medicine is getting lost to a certain extent because medicine began as an art, it did not begin as a science. Of course over the centuries it became more scientific, it became improved and those are all positives. But we as physicians should not lose the sight that we are healers first, technicians later," he said.