Last week, I had lunch with a young couple.  At one point in the conversation, the woman turn to me and says, "Karma Clinic has changed our life, probably forever."  After a consultation with Dr. Binal, they completely changed their diet and after three weeks, they can't ever see themselves going back to their old habits.

After finishing Biology at Rutgers, Binal spent four years for a Naturopathy Medicine degree, and then got another Masters in Nutrition.  More than the human body, she was fascinated by the interaction of spirit and the body.  During her med-school training, she was spending her spare time interning with Homeopathy and Ayurveda doctors.  And then "Dr. Binal" traveled to stay with doctors exploring alternative approaches to medical care -- folks like Patch Adams (photographed above, with Binal in the center).

As circumstances would have it, Binal also spent a year at a monastery in a remote region of Arkansas.  She wore simple robes of a nun everyday, she ate one meal a day, she meditated a lot, and she served rest of time.  In the whole year, she never once touched money, or expected to receive anything in return for her medical services.  When she returned back to the "real" world, her first trip to the grocery store was memorable -- she just walked out.  "Oh, I forgot, I had to pay," she later realized.  :)

Soon enough, though, she adjusted to the "real" world.  But not too much.  She decided to wear white clothing all the time, she kept up her one-meal-a-day routine, and she made an internal commitment to the no-strings-approach of gift-economy.

Few months ago, Hitesh started a thread on our 'ideas' alias for gift-economy health care; Binal picked it up and bunch of doctors brainstormed together.  We had our first formal meeting that Richard wrote about, a small office in Downtown Berkeley was rented (and painted by volunteers!), and Karma Clinic was off to a rip-roarin' start.

As the story goes, Binal received an anonymous envelope with the gift of first month's rent!  Her plan was to keep working at Elephant Pharmacy to support  herself and fund the basic Karma Clinic infrastructure costs, and serve part-time.  She's now seeing patients 20 hrs/week and the gifts from those visits is sustaining the experiment!

Go Karma Clinic!