May/June 2001

Harvard Creates New Holistic Medical Program

BOSTON -- Harvard Medical School, acknowledging that more and more patients are receiving complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) treatments, is creating an institute for non-traditional medicine. Harvard researchers say they plan to examine the effectiveness of such treatments as chiropractic, acupuncture, herbal therapies, and massage, and will look at how they work or interact with traditional medicine.

"You can't practice medicine these days without knowing what patients are doing, and a tremendous amount of them are doing it," said Dr. Dan Federman, who helped start Harvard's new program.

Harvard calls its program integrative medicine, for the combination of alternative and mainstream treatments. Americans make an estimated 600 million office visits to practitioners of integrative medicine each year and spend $30 billion on treatments, according to a recent Harvard study.

The school decided to start an integrative medicine program to learn more about how pharmaceutical drugs and herbal medicines interact with each other, and whether or not herbal medicines live up to their reputations.

The program, established with a $10 million gift from San Francisco philanthropist Bernard Osher and $2 million from the school, will work in conjunction with a similar one at the University of California at San Francisco.

The University of Arizona was one of the first schools to start an integrative medicine program. Founded in 1994, it now includes a month-long rotation for medical students that exposes them to nontraditional practices.

The University of Pennsylvania also has a program devoted to alternative medicines. Some other schools are incorporating naturopathic medicine, Chinese medicine and chiropractic techniques into curricula.

Dr. Monica Aggarwal of the New England Medical Center wasn't taught about nontraditional medicine in medical school. She said she regularly sees patients who are taking some sort of herbal product to ease their ailments.

"I think a lot of it is hodgepodge medicine," she said. "They are taking all these medications, and they have no idea what they are and if they are causing these problems. And we don't know what's in whatever they've taken."

That kind of miscommunication has prevented Nikki Davis from choosing a new doctor. She used to talk to her doctor about herbs and other holistic treatments, but when he died, she says she couldn't find another doctor as open-minded.

"I miss him so much, because he was really wise," said Davis, a 38-year-old counselor in Newton who advises he
r own clients about holistic treatments. "But it's really hard to find someone like that. ...I prefer a doctor who speaks both languages. That's always the best."

Source: Associated Press

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