20 Years of Integrative Medicine
20 Years of Integrative Medicine:
A Celebration to Remember at the University of Maryland’s Center for Integrative Medicine
On Tuesday, May 17, 2011, the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Center for Integrative Medicine celebrated its 20th Anniversary with a ribbon cutting ceremony. The day’s distinguished speakers recounted how far integrative medicine has come since it was founded in 1991. Each one noted the impact the Center has made on the field of integrative medicine because of its groundbreaking research, clinic and professional education programs. In addition, personal stories about healing provided testament to the benefit and difference the Center has made in the lives of many patients. University officials paid tribute to many of the Center’s important donors who, through their generosity over the years, have made the Center’s work possible and, of course, the National Institutes of Health was cited for its invaluable funding. At the conclusion of the ceremony, the Center announced its new $20 million fundraising campaign and that an anonymous donor had already pledged a challenge grant of $7.5 million.
Dr. Brian Berman, founder and director of the Center for Integrative Medicine, served as the emcee and opened up the event with a brief history of the Center and a short summary of its many accomplishments over the past 20 years. He was joined by Senator Barbara Mikulski who remarked on how she remembered meeting Dr. Berman about 20 years ago and feeling that his ideas were going to change the field of medicine – and they have! The University of Maryland Baltimore President, Jay Perman, MD and University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Dean E. Albert Reece, MD touched on the impact that the Center has had on global health through research collaborations with some of the University’s other graduate schools, many universities across the United States, and several educational institutions around the world. Dr. Steven Schimpff, former CEO of the University of Maryland Medical Center, spoke about how the Center’s clinic made a huge impact on his wife’s health and how he has witnessed first hand how the Center has impacted health care in many positive ways. Dr. Tom Scalea, head of the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, reminisced about Dr. Berman’s proposal to bring integrative medicine into the Shock Trauma Center. Dr. Scalea responded with, “That’s a crazy idea… let’s do it!” Ms. Lorrie Knight-Major shared her experience of how the use of integrative medicine in the Shock Trauma Center, including acupuncture, Reiki, sound healing, guided imagery, and mindfulness/meditation techniques, helped heal her son, SGT Ryan Major, after he was seriously wounded by a bomb in Iraq several years ago. He told her that “Doctors gave me back my body, but Reiki gave me back my soul.” Additionally, the Center’s director of Education, Dr. Delia Chiaramonte, and a recent graduate of the School of Medicine, Dr. Azize Sahin (class of 2011), discussed the rapidly growing education program and how students have reported not only being able to use integrative modalities in their practices, but more importantly that they use them to take care of themselves. Overall, the ceremony was a powerful testimony of the impact integrative medicine and the Center have had in the years since its inception in 1991.
The ribbon cutting also marked the official grand opening of the Center’s new academic office located in the heart of the University of Maryland’s Baltimore campus. The building, known as East Hall, sits next to Davidge Hall, the oldest medical facility in the country continuously used for medical education. The move to East Hall has allowed for increased collaborations between the Center and all of the other graduate schools as well as the Medical Center, and has aided in increased student interest in and access to the integrative medicine education program.
For videos from the Ceremony, please visit: http://www.compmed.umm.edu/20th_Anniversary___Ribbon_Cutting_Ceremony.asp.
For a pdf of some quotes from the Ceremony, please click here: 20th Anniversary Quotes pdf
The ceremony was the kick-off to a yearlong celebration of the Center’s landmark anniversary, which will culminate with a conference on Saturday, April 14, 2012, featuring keynote speaker Dr. Andrew Weil. The conference, entitled “Healing the Whole Person,” is aimed at educating both medical professionals and the general community by addressing topics such as integrated approaches to disease management, health promotion and prevention of disease, the role of nutrition, stress-relief, and wellness in our health care system. The conference will feature workshops and lectures by some of the leaders in the integrative medicine field. For more information, please visit: http://www.compmed.umm.edu/Conference_2012.asp.