By CLAYTON PARK

Visitors to One Sky Medicine in Lake City are greeted by a large mural that adorns the waiting room. Karen Stocker, a family counselor who is one of One Skyıs contract providers, is responsible for creating the mural, which she describes as a work in progress that changes and grows from week to week.

³Practitioners and patients alike of the One Sky Medicine community have been generously contributing images from their own experience of healing colors, inspiring views, animals, plants and elements ‹ whatever might spark a sweet memory, evoke a feeling of joy or well-being, invite reflection on the mystery of our lives, our relations, our world,² Stocker states in a handout explaining the mural.

³I am painting the mural out of my best understanding of the vision and the hope of One Sky Medicine,² she adds.

If the mural isnıt enough of a clue that this is no ordinary clinic, consider how One Sky describes itself in its fliers: ³The creation of One Sky Medicine arose from a collective dream of redefining health care. The clinic is the outgrowth of an exploratory process to re-envision health care that is responsive to the uniqueness of each individual.²

One Sky opened last summer at the Lake City Professional Center (2611 NE 125th), in a space formerly occupied by Shoreline Family Medicine.

The new clinicıs founders are Program Director Fred Lanphear, and two of One Skyıs core providers: Chris Adams, a family physician, and Christy Lee-Engel, an acupuncturist and practitioner of naturopathic and Oriental medicine.

The three met at the Northwest Institute of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (NIAOM) in Fremont, where Lanphear was president and Adams and Lee-Engel were members of the board.

³I was feeling frustrated with the economics of medicine ... cause and effect care that can be done in 10 minutes, a very bio-mechanical view of medicine,² said Adams, who found that Lee-Engel and Lanphear shared her views.

The three began exploring the idea of creating a way of embracing different medical disciplines including western and eastern medicine, acupuncture and naturopathy.

³Part of our vision,² said Lee-Engel, ³was the idea of healing the health care system itself² by encouraging other health care practitioners to do the same.

Adams added: ³We always think of primary care as going to a physician. I think of primary care as self-care. We want to revitalize that sense of primary care. Itıs how people live.²

Lanphear, Adams and Lee-Engel formed a nonprofit corporation called the Seattle Institute of Integrative Medicine, the parent organization for One Sky Medicine, and spent a year-and-a-half making plans and raising the funds needed to open their own clinic.

When One Skyıs founders learned that Shoreline Family Medicine was vacating its space in the Lake City Professional Center, they decided it would make a great location for their clinic. ³We really like that our clinic is in a neighborhood that is really accessible by bus and car and can serve patients from all over town,² Lanphear said. The Lake City location is also central to NIAOM, the University of Washington and Bastyr University ‹ institutions that One Sky has affiliations with.

One Sky offers full spectrum family medicine (with the exception of obstetrics) that includes holistic medicine, acupuncture, naturopathy and counseling. Routine outpatient procedures such as minor surgery, laboratory analysis and electrocardiagram (EKG) monitoring are also provided. The clinic, which has affiliations with several area hospitals, offers 24-hour emergency coverage as well as collaborative care clinics for patients with chronic conditions that allows primary care providers to develop coordinated care plans with practitioners of different disciplines. It also offers an education resource center that includes a free lending library of selected books on health and wellness, informational handouts, and a variety of classes that include yoga, tıai chi (a Chinese exercise program) and qi gong (a form of Chinese movement and meditation).

In addition to Adams and Lee-Engel, One Skyıs core providers include Kathleen Matteson, a family practitioner who combines naturopathic and allopathic medicines, Lisa Meserole, a naturopathic physician, and Dean Chier, a family physician. In February, One Sky will add a new core provider: pediatrician Carol Ann Doroshow.

One Sky also has 10 contract providers, ranging from energy healing and psychiatric services to medical acupuncture and massage therapy.

Adams suggested the name for the clinic from an inspiration that came to her while camping along the Washington coast, near La Push. ³A woman came to me in a dream and said ŒYouıre to be called One Sky Medicine,ı² she recalled.

Upon hearing it, Lanphear and Lee-Engel loved the name. ³It was an immediate consensus,² recalled Lanphear. ³One Sky Medicine is certainly catchier than SIOIM.²

One Sky Medicine can be reached at 363-5555