March 2005

OSU opens CAM center, includes chiropractic

The Ohio State University Medical Center has opened its own Center for Integrative Medicine. The center is designed to combine mainstream medicine with complementary therapies for which there is high-quality scientific evidence of safety and effectiveness.

Patients will be offered complementary therapies, including chiropractic, acupuncture, massage and yoga, within a family medicine practice.

The center is part of OSU Medical Center’s Primary Care Network. Patients may self-refer to the center’s providers or be referred by their primary care physician/specialist. In addition to consultation, counseling and therapy provided by a range of highly credentialed and/or licensed board certified practitioners, programs include workshops designed for in-depth exploration of topics and one-on-one educational and consultation sessions.

For students pursuing degrees in medicine and related health care professions, the center offers a resource allowing students to consider integrative medicine’s role in their specialty of choice, said Dr. Mary Jo Welker, chair of family medicine and executive director of the Primary Care Network.

Ohio State students have received training in integrative medicine for several years to help them recognize how knowledge of complementary and alternative health practices can be useful in the practice of traditional medicine, she said.

“We also expect this center to foster research collaboration that will help define the national research agenda in integrative medicine,” Welker said.

Such research is supported by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), established in 1990 as one of the National Institutes of Health. A 2004 government survey estimates that at least 36 percent of all American adults now use some form of complementary or alternative medicine (see link below).

Source: The Ohio State University, www.osu.edu

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