Tag Archives: jumeirah

Special Request for Your Thoughts and Prayers

I have received this email from Nancy Griffin http://www.spatrade.com/ and also Julie Register http://www.discoverspas.com/ and would like to pass the message further to any who have not yet received it. It is good to know that at a time like this there is a spa family who can pull together. Since Peter had a motorcycle “mishap” just a few weeks ago, it is even more jolting and sobering to hear about this serious accident. Thanks for adding your thoughts and prayers.

***

Dear Susie,
I received an email from Gina Molinari this morning informing me that Linda Troeller’s husband, Lothar, was in a very serious accident over the weekend. If you don’t know Linda personally, you are familiar with her photographic art that I have been featuring in the DiscoverSpas.com newsletter over the past few months. I know you will want to include Lothar and Linda in your thoughts and prayers. Gina’s email follows.

Kind Regards,
Julie

***

Sun, 7 Oct 2007 22:19:05 -0700 (PDT)

Dear Friends,

This past weekend Linda’s husband, Lothar, was in a serious accident. Eye witnesses say that while driving his motorcycle, Lothar went over the road divider and into an oncoming car head on at approximately 55 miles an hour. The other driver was not hurt but unfortunately Lothar has sustained extensive injuries, initially not even expected to make it through the night.

He has a broken right leg, multiple broken ribs, a punctured lung, 2 broken bones in his left hand and I believe a broken bone in the right arm as well as damage to his pelvis. He is on a respirator but breathing on his own as well. To control his pain he was sedated and remains unconscious BUT is not in a coma.

We are informed by one of my clients who is a former trauma surgeon that he is in excellent care at the University Hospital in Newark New Jersey and has the potential to make a full recovery. I spent a small portion of this afternoon with them in the hospital talking to, and touching Lothar so that he knows how much we love him, Linda is remaining positive while I tried to remain supportive.

Over the years Linda has given of herself and her talent to the industry and has graced and inspired each and every one of us with her signature images. At this time however perhaps in our own way with our respective talents we can each give back to this iconic friend something special by virtue of our prayers, love and support.

I know I can speak for each and every one of you when I say that we are all with Linda and Lothar in spirit.

Sincerely,

Gina Molinari

Destination Wellness

Pic11547E 784580 Destination WellnessI’m sitting in the cyber cafe of Bumrungrad International here in Bangkok, Thailand. Bumrungrad is the hospital that 60 Minutes called, “The number-one international hospital in the world.” NBC’s Peter Greenberg recently featured it on the Today show. It is getting a lot of attention because the price (low), access (you can walk in and see a doctor within 20 minutes), and quality (tops) are what everyone wants.

I’ve been told it is the health care of the future – so naturally I wanted to see for myself.
Bum8185 763603 Destination Wellness
There are 750 doctors on staff, and they see one million patients a year. The nurses and large support staff (many of whom are concierges) have smiles and serve refreshments. The children’s area was filled with little ones having fun on the colorful tubes – the kind you see at some McDonald’s playgrounds – playing with toys, and crawling over couches and chairs that look like soccer balls. The doctor’s offices for the kids resemble little play houses. I bet parents have no problem taking their kids to the doctor around here!

This large, very clean facility looks like a cross between a mall (with a Starbuck’s, shopping, restaurants), hospital, clinic, and high-end hotel. The only thing they are missing is a really forward thinking spa facility which could be integrated for patients, visitors and staff.
Bum8111 741374 Destination Wellness
People fly in from all over the world for low-cost medical procedures here, such as executive health physicals, heart surgery, plastic surgery, or Lasik eye procedures, to name just a few. Although they don’t currently have a spa, there are some spa elements available: A gym, hair salon, and massage therapists who can come to your hospital room. There is also a rooftop garden overlooking the city of Bangkok with beautiful landscaping. As lovely as this outdoor space was, no one was using it. And because it is always hot and humid in Bangkok, I don’t imagine it gets much use at all. (Looks like great space for a spa to me!)

Ruben Toral, the hospital’s group marketing director who is quite passionate about the work they do there, gave me a full tour, explained the business model, and shared with me that they are expanding this facility and also building a new Bumrungrad in Dubai.

I hope he is right about their model – low cost, high quality and quick accessibility – being the future of health care. And now if they could get the spa element right, it would be a real winner.

**
If you wish to be put on a list that automatically sends my blog posts to your email, just let dulcy.gregory@spafinder.com know and she will add you to that list. Thanks so much!

A peek into the future of spa medicine

dan 717880 A peek into the future of spa medicineI spent today going through medical tests at the WellMax Center for Preventive Medicine in La Quinta, California (near where I am vacationing and, yes, trying to resist the temptation to call my office). We met Dr. Dan Cosgrove (pictured at right), its founder, five years ago at an event here in the desert that Spa Finder hosted at Le Vallauris, a restaurant in Palm Springs. It was shortly after my husband, Peter, and I got involved with Spa Finder and at about the same time Dr. Cosgrove opened WellMax, his new-concept medical-spa, at the La Quinta Hotel and Spa.

Truth be told, we thought Dr. Cosgrove was a bit “full of himself” that first evening we met. He kept going on and on about this new kind of medical practice he was introducing, and let’s just say the conversation seemed uni-directional. Well, a great deal has happened in the five years since that encounter. Having followed WellMax’s growth and progress, we began to suspect that Dr. Cosgrove’s eccentricity stemmed from genius more than self-obsession. Recently we heard it had become almost impossible to get an appointment with him personally anymore. So we decided to invest (and I do mean invest…more about that later) in the WellMax “intensive physical” to see what all the fuss was about.

Suffice it to say that a few months after our initial physical in February, we are now more than impressed with Dr. Cosgrove and his “new medical spa” concept. Dr. Cosgrove discovered a growing mass on Peter’s kidney, which was successfully removed through surgery just weeks later – preventing a potentially serious condition in which he might have lost the kidney. And for me, while nothing of immediate critical concern was found, some interesting discoveries were made – including results from Predictive Genomics that are causing me to make some new choices.

I think we have glimpsed the future of spa medicine. And wow, is it ever exciting!

**
If you wish to be put on a list that automatically sends my blog posts to your email, just let dulcy.gregory@spafinder.com know and she will add you to that list. Thanks so much!