� 1999 Medical Tribune News Service

A medical and research clinic in Cleveland has had success treating people with HIV/AIDS in a decidedly unconventional way. Over the last 20 years, Ron Rooy has reinvented himself several times by founding and managing everything from a printing shop to a radio production company and a commodity brokerage. But when he decided to change professions again several years ago -- this time to the chief executive of a Cleveland alternative medicine and research clinic catering largely to people with HIV -- career fancy had little to do with the job shift. "It all started as a treatment program to help me," explained Rooy, who was diagnosed with HIV nearly 12 years ago. In the process Rooy, along with co-founders Charlie Dale and Joe Quarterson, created a grassroots movement in the Cleveland area devoted to helping HIV-infected patients live better by combining the worlds of allopathic medicine and complementary holistic treatments. Since opening in November 1997, New Hope's client list has risen from a group of three, including Rooy and Dale, to more than 130. One patient, after years of being bedridden by neuropathy, is walking again without even the help of a cane. A pregnant woman experienced a substantial jump in her blood cell count, even though women without the virus tend to experience a drop in cell counts during pregnancy. Then there's the countless reports of renewed energy and vitality as a result of therapy received at New Hope. Clients are offered a mix of therapies, including not only counseling on dietary habits and vitamin/herbal supplements, but also massage, channeling, hypnotherapy and programming, acupuncture and psychosocial counseling, plus programs in music and exercise therapy, which includes body building. "Our whole program is designed to show that the conventional medical approach and the complementary therapy can work even better together," said Rooy. Embodying this philosophy is New Hope's full-time physician, Harry Simmons, M.D. Simmons, a career pathologist before joining the clinic, doubles as a massage therapist when not monitoring the status of patients enrolled with the clinic. (All clients are also required to have outside doctors.) The New Hope staff is now 25, including four physicians, a social worker and an employment counselor. Funding has always been in short supply for New Hope. Most clients are on Medicaid or Medicare and some don't have any insurance. But perhaps the biggest success story is Rooy himself. He was given just over a year to live after being diagnosed with HIV. That was 1989. After spending a tumultuous two years preparing for death, which included the loss of his life-partner to an AIDS-related illness; the dissolution of the executive search firm he owned; and the depletion of most of his money, Rooy rethought the direction of his life. "At the end of the two years when I had gone through my savings and I was still here, I said to myself, wait a minute, what do I do now?" Today Rooy runs the business operation and Quarterson oversees programming. New Hope is now expanding its offices. More work needs to be done to help people with HIV achieve a better quality of life. "If I had to just live on the pills with the side effects, I wouldn't want it. I'd rather have more quality than a longer quantity of time," Rooy said. That, he added, is true living. June 16, 1999 � 1999 Medical Tribune medtrib@medtrib.com