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UNM Center for Life--Integrative Medicine Specialty Clinic
The Section of Integrative Medicine began operation on July 1, 2001, after being announced by Dean Paul Roth MD in April. It is located within the Division of General Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine (ACC, room 5259). The mission of the SIM is threefold: education, service, and research.
Integrative Medicine is healing-oriented medicine that takes account of the whole person (mind, body, and spirit), including all aspects of lifestyle. It emphasizes the therapeutic relationship and makes use of all appropriate therapies, both conventional and complementary.
As is widely known, many patients are using CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) therapies such as massage, acupuncture, chiropractic, herbs, and homeopathy, for chronic and acute problems (Eisenberg, JAMA 1991, 1998). Most users of CAM see a conventional provider first, but many do not tell their PCP about their CAM use, often assuming that the PCP will not be well-informed about CAM (Eisenberg, AIM 2001).
In order to address this issue in conventional medicine, there are now various post-graduate fellowship programs in Integrative Medicine. The leader is this effort has been Andrew Weil, MD, who has published many books on this subject and started the first Integrative Medicine fellowship at the University of Arizona, Tucson.
Integrative Medicine, as defined in such academic circles, is more than just “more tools in the toolbag.” It strives to include patients as active participants in their own healthcare by means of education, increased decision-making, nutrition, and mind-body therapies such as yoga, meditation, and mindfulness-based stress reduction. Integrative Medicine also places a premium on the mental, physical, and spiritual health of providers, and wellness activities are encouraged for them as well. CAM therapies, then, are ways of achieving these ends.
Integrative Medicine is a new concept in academic medicine, and its name may undergo yet more changes, but the principles of health and wellness which it espouses are timeless. They are, in fact, the foundation of the art of healing.
