“Integrative medicine is really about health and healing. It’s about how can we use multiple modes of therapy to manage patients’ health with evidence-based guidelines.” – David Rakel, MD
The third edition of Integrative Medicine is designed to empower clinicians to understand how they can incorporate complementary and alternative therapies into their practice. The book really shows what the data tells us might work best for a specific condition. For example: hypertension. We have really good medications for hypertension, but what about supplements, what about mind/body, what about just simple breath work? What about a DASH diet, what about nutrition? How can some of these other modalities really stack the deck in favor of the body’s ability to self-heal? And really that’s the goal of this book, to try to put ourselves out of business! If we’re doing our job well, our patients will need us less and they will understand how to create health for themselves and this book helps us understand which tools will work best.
Integrative medicine is really about health and healing. It’s about how can use multiple modes of therapy to manage patients’ health with evidence-based guidelines. We also honor the relationship that each clinician has with their patient and then use the relationship as a tool to help empower both parties to understand what’s going to work the best.
David Rakel, MD serves as Director and Founder of the University of Wisconsin Integrative Medicine program and Associate Professor with tenure in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Wisconsin Medical School and Public Health in Madison. He is board certified by both the American Board of Family Medicine and the American Board of Integrative Holistic Medicine, and is certified in interactive guided imagery. He is co-editor of the eighth edition of Textbook of Family Medicine and author of Integrative Medicine.
Prior to his time in academia, Dr. Rakel served in rural practice in Driggs, Idaho, and as medical director of Grand Targhee Ski resort. He completed a residential fellowship in Integrative Medicine at University of Arizona and joined University of Wisconsin in 2001. Dr. Rakel has received several teaching awards including the Baldwin E. Lloyd clinical teacher award, the University of Wisconsin Department of Family Medicine faculty excellence award, the Marc Hansen lecture award and the resident teacher-of-the-year award.
Related Author: Robert E. Rakel, MD
