In Praise of the Bravewell Experience

Bravewell Collaborative members and partners, and the physician leaders with whom they work, embrace integrative medicine as the means to transform our health care system.

Integrative medicine is focused on the whole person, not just on symptoms or disease, and on healing as much as on curing; it is care that emphasizes patient and practitioner self-responsibility, and recognizes the importance of relationship and partnership in maintaining or restoring wholeness. Integrative medicine draws freely from Western and non-Western medical traditions and makes use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) methodologies that have been shown to be effective in promoting healing.

Here is what involved people are saying about the Bravewell Collaborative and its efforts:

"Over the past seven years, it has become clear to me that strategic, collaborative funding is the most effective way to leverage our individual giving.  The satisfaction and pleasure I am experiencing in being part of this operating foundation—in learning how to work collaboratively and think strategically to change the culture of medicine—has exceeded my highest expectations."

Penny George

President, George Family Foundation
Co-Founder and Past President, The Bravewell Collaborative

"I extend my appreciation and admiration for the rapid progress the Bravewell Collaborative is making in moving this important field forward, and I applaud the group's vision for mainstreaming integrative medicine into general health care. The Bravewell Collaborative's focus on academic medical centers and medical education will help physicians both now and in the future understand the healing power integrative medicine brings to health care."

Ralph Snyderman, M.D.

Former Chancellor of Health Affairs, Executive Dean of Duke School of Medicine
Former President and CEO of Duke University Health Systems

"The Bravewell Collaborative, in partnership with other organizations such as the Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine and the members of the Bravewell Clinical Network, is the venue through which we can pool our resources, talents, expertise, and insights in order to affect great and lasting change in the field of medicine for the benefit of all mankind. By bringing these assets together into one cohesive group sharing one common goal—fast-tracking integrative medicine into mainstream medicine—we are able to combine that vision with action in a much more effective and productive manner, and that is extremely gratifying to me."

Christy Mack

President, The Christy and John Mack Foundation
President and Co-Founder, The Bravewell Collaborative