Even as a teenager, Susie Mayerfeld knew that she wanted to help people heal. Her first job was as a nurse’s aid in Camp Moshava before she entered nursing school. After making aliyah at the age of 21 from Monsey, Mayerfeld worked as a nurse on Kibbutz Meirav and then for 22 years as a nurse in Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, first in the emergency room and then in the outpatient oncology unit.
But during these years she yearned for the ability to provide not only for the physical needs of her patients but also for their emotional well-being. After two decades at Beilinson Hospital, Mayerfeld decided to pursue a path of holistic healing. Today, she serves as the head of the Integrative Medicine Clinic for oncology patients under the umbrella of Palliative Care Services at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan.
When Mayerfeld works with an oncology patient, her goal is to help the individual maintain a more positive outlook and healthy emotional state, and to provide each one with “an oasis of calm” by relieving and preventing side effects of cancer treatments and lowering anxiety and fear. She employs the therapeutic techniques of acupuncture, reflexology, shiatsu, tuina, yoga therapy and medical hypnosis. “Conventional medicine a lot of times just treats the symptoms but not the core problem,” she explained. “With integrative medicine we are looking deeper.”
When treating a patient who is experiencing pain, as an example, she may help the individual to identify the source of the pain in the body and acknowledge its existence, rather than trying to fight it. She will then work to relax the pain through techniques such as breathing exercises. The key to healing, she says, lies in the emotions, and she believes strongly in the mind-body connection and the integral role the mind plays in the healing process.
Mayerfeld also believes that disease exists for the purpose of healing and self-improvement, and that the body exhibits the physical symptoms of an emotional trauma that requires rethinking. She takes her patients on an internal journey to explore their strengths along with the negative traits they want to change. “What I can help people with emotionally during this time sometimes can completely change their outlook on the whole process,” she explained. She tells her patients, “I want you to see things differently. I want you to touch the difficult emotional things that you are going through.”
She added: “I help people to feel. If you are not willing to feel, you can’t heal.”
Though she refuses to call herself a healer, insisting that it is the patient who must have the desire to want to be healed, Mayerfeld admits to gaining a great deal of satisfaction knowing that she has helped people at their worst.
Over a million patients are treated each year at Sheba, the largest medical center in the Middle East. The Outpatient Palliative Clinic was opened in 2003. As part of her duties, Mayerfeld oversees a team of 25 medical professionals. She also works with her team to conduct studies on the efficacy of the different modalities of integrative medicine.
Over the past decade, the field of integrative medicine has grown significantly in Israel. Every major medical facility in the country has an integrative medical facility. Last year, Israel opened its doors to the Medical Care IM Rehabilitation Center in Bat Yam, the first hospital in the country to follow an integrated mind-body-spirit model for all patients. Despite these advances, Mayerfeld would like to see integrative medicine play a more prominent role alongside conventional medicine in the Israeli medical system. She also hopes that holistic therapies will eventually be included in Israel’s sal habriut, or health services that insurance companies provide at no-cost or reduced costs.
Mayerfeld is aware that there is tremendous potential for new learning and discovery in the field in Israel, and she aims to continue to incorporate the latest research into her approach to healing. Looking back to her summer job as a nurse’s aid and her subsequent roles, she knows she has come a long way. “If you would have asked me 15 years ago if I would be doing what I’m doing now and believe the things I do now, I probably would not have believed you,” she said.
Alisa Bodner is a Fair Lawn native who immigrated to Israel a decade ago. She is a nonprofit management professional who enjoys writing in her free time.
