UC San Diego launches new centers for integrative healthcare

The University of California San Diego debuted its new Centers for Integrative Health on August 19, according to a recent press release.

The new Centers for Integrative Health unifies a number of the college's current complementary programs abd is comprised of five distinct, existing centers, according to the annoucnement:

• The Center for Integrative Medicine, established in 2010, offers whole-person, integrative clinical services that include physician consultations, osteopathic manual therapies, acupuncture, massage, and jin shin jyutsu at multiple UC San Diego Health clinical sites. The center currently treats more than 10,000 patients annually.
• The Center for Mindfulness offers a range of mindfulness-based programs for both UC San Diego Health patients and the public, plus training to teach mindfulness-based programs. It was among the first university-based centers in the world solely devoted to studying and teaching mindfulness.
• The Center for Integrative Research combines integrative health, public health, and practice-based research efforts based at UC San Diego and establishes a granting agency through a new research endowment.
• The Center for Integrative Nutrition houses all nutrition-related integrative programs, cooking classes, and clinical services.
• The Center for Integrative Education oversees educational programs for students, San Diego County residents, and continuing education for health professionals, plus community education and outreach activities.

To celebrate the launch, staff hosted a public forum featuring TED talk-style presentations by noted local scientists, doctors and experts on integrative medicine, mindfulness, integrative nutrition, integrative research and integrative education.

“This will be a ‘first-of-its-kind’ event, marking a key turning point in our seven-year history,” said Lauray MacElhern, managing director of the Centers for Integrative Health. “We need empowering approaches that encourage active patient self-care in support of whole-person health. Our new Centers are dedicated to that mission from research, educational and clinical perspectives, with each established center uniquely poised to leverage our collective strength.”