Dear Pre-Health Post-Bacc Community and Pre-Health Community,

Alternative and Complementary approaches to health care are becoming increasingly popular in our society. Just to name a few, there are therapeutic yoga classes for cancer patients given at Sloan Kettering, acupuncture treatments for post-surgery recovery at Columbia, and research into herbal teas and extracts is ongoing at universities around the world (for example, the most effective anti-malarial drug to date, artemisinin, comes from an herb used in Chinese traditional medicine). There's even a branch of the NIH devoted to the study of these treatments: The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Care.

However, these techniques and the practice of them are something that we traditionally learn almost nothing about as pre-meds. While we often have extensive exposure to MDs, RNs, and EMTs during our volunteer and research activities, we learn almost nothing about the lives, practices, and paths of actupuncturists, naturopaths, and other practitioners of complementary and alternative medicine, even though we will most likely be working alongside them in our future careers.

Therefore, on Thursday , Dec 4th, from 7:30-9:00, we'll be hosting a panel discussion on complementary and alternative medicine, and we're looking for more speakers so as to get as broad a perspective as possible.  So if you or someone you know practices alternative medicine, and would be interested in being a speaker, please contact me at [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>.

I know there's a lot of talent out their in our post-bacc community - if you have knowledge on this topic that you can share - please do so! Any assistance would be much appreciated!