Doctor treats pain with chuckle

By Alice Keesing
Advertiser Health Writer

Go ahead and laugh.

Dr. James McKoy watches as Shane Choy-Foo, 17, gets his face painted at Kaiser Moanalua Medical Center. Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser

As chief of rheumatology and pain management at Kaiser Permanente Moanalua Medical Center, McKoy sees a lot of people who live with serious pain. To help his patients get through it and heal, McKoy promotes a blend of traditional medicine and alternative approaches such as aromatherapy, acupuncture, massage and plain old laughter.

"I'm the one doing all the quackery around here," McKoy said with a chuckle as he tried to put a red foam ball back on his nose when he and another clown brought some smiles to sick children in the pediatrics ward this week.

McKoy hopes to make the clown rounds a frequent event. He also wants to develop a Hawai'i Humor Institute to help incorporate laughter into overall treatment plans. Kaiser officials say they would be the first in Hawai'i to embrace such a method.

McKoy's message is simple: Laughter and a positive attitude are great healers. Research from major institutions have shown that laughter can boost the immune system and natural killer cells that fight disease, McKoy said.

"It's more of a holistic approach — spirit, soul and body," McKoy said. "There's more to healing than writing a prescription or cutting something out."

Finished with his clown rounds, McKoy returns briefly to his office. A scent of patchouli wafts into the sterile hospital hallway as he opens the door. Relaxation music plays on his computer and a water foundation bubbles away on his desk. He keeps the lights off, preferring natural light from the window, which he believes is better for natural biorhythms.

McKoy practices what he preaches, folding alternative approaches into his own life just as he prescribes them for patients.

He began the search for other answers as he watched his five brothers die of cancer.

"I didn't see where traditional medicine benefited them that much," McKoy said. "I'm not saying traditional medicine doesn't work; it just didn't help their illness that much. So I began to search, and to read and to study to see how you can stay alive."

He also had an early introduction to alternative ways of healing growing up in Whiteville, N.C., where conventional medical care was scarce for African-American families. There were just two small rooms at the back of the hospital for African-American patients, and doctors wouldn't call at his house because his family was too poor. McKoy's father was paralyzed by a stroke, and he watched his mother care for him for four years by going out and gathering herbs and boiling them up.

McKoy is among a slow-growing number of Western medical physicians who are finding value in Asian or folk treatments.

"The medical establishment traditionally has not embraced or accepted these things," he said. "But in the next five to 10 years I think we will see it right alongside traditional medicine."

At one of his frequent seminars for arthritis patients later in the day, McKoy continued his message of positive living to a roomful of patients and family members.

His deadpan delivery and wry comments had his audience grinning and giggling, boosting their happy hormones.

In the audience was Glenda James, who drives to Moanalua from the Windward side just to see McKoy.

"I came down with rheumatoid arthritis about three years ago, and I went to another doctor and he totally blew me away with all these heavy drugs and a whole list of side effects," James said. She never went back, and eventually found McKoy.

The pain that nearly kept her bedridden is now mostly under control, she said, thanks to the care of McKoy, a naturopath and yoga classes.

"I'm doing incredibly better. I've been able to back off some of my medications," James said. "(McKoy) is a blessing. I don't know what I would have done without him."

Reach Alice Keesing at akeesing@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8014.