As if her severe asthma, chronic bronchitis, complicated migraines and allergic rhinitis weren't enough, single mom Ella Robinson found herself barely able to manage the side issues wrought by a long list of often-disabling diseases and the merry-go-round of failed treatment.

"I was going through all the psychological effects," she said of her constant pain and fear that an asthma attack would shut down her breathing. "On the inside, you're just dying. I thought that had to be connected in some way with me being sick, and that something had to be done with my mental state so that I could control my diseases."

Traditional treatments can overlook variables that often play a critical role in improving a person's health and well-being. That's why Robinson is a patient at the University of Mississippi Medical Center's new, twice-monthly integrative medicine clinic that focuses on much more than a person's root medical problems.

"The goal of integrative medicine is to address the whole person - the body, the mind and the spirit," said Dr. Gailen Marshall, professor of medicine and pediatrics and the R. Faser Triplett Sr., M.D. Chair of Allergy and Immunology. It's an evidence-based approach to care that puts the patient at the center, addressing the physical, emotional, mental, social, spiritual and environmental influences that may be impacting a person's health.

That could mean teaching the patient optimism versus pessimism, or the value of a therapeutic massage. Often, it will involve traditional medical therapy and psychology merging paths on the journey to finding a way to help patients feel their best.

In 2005, Dr. Larry Creswell gave his own cardiovascular system a jolt.

"I decided to get up off the couch and be healthy," said Creswell, associate professor of surgery and an adult heart surgeon.

A decade later, he's added triathlete to his titles. He swims, bikes and runs his way through events across the world, from Australia to Africa to Brazil. Later this summer, he'll travel to Istanbul.

Creswell arrived at UMMC in 2003 after completing a residency at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, where he served on the Department of Surgery faculty. When he took charge of his health, Creswell said, he knew it would involve exercise.

He didn't necessarily start out aspiring to take on a triathlon, a sporting competition which in its most popular form involves swimming, biking and running, consecutively, over various distances.

"I was a bit of a swimmer growing up, but not after high school," Creswell said. "That would have been my sport, aside from baseball, as a real young kid. So I decided to pick up swimming again, and then I found friends in Jackson who were bicycling. I got a bike and rode it more and more."

Then came the third sport in the triangle.

A number of interesting events is scheduled in the upcoming weeks at the Medical Center.

The Medical Center is proud to announce the following additions to its faculty and leadership staff: