Dr. Daniel Federman is the Senior Dean for Alumni Relations and Clinical Teaching and the Carl W. Walter Distinguished
Professor of Medicine and Medical Education at the Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Federman introduces the final presentations of the conference, which focus on alternative (or complementary)
medicine. States Dr. Federman, recent studies analysing the popularity of alternative therapies showed that "the use of alternative
medicine and approaches dwarfed anything that physicians had previously known about. The amount spent on it exceeds what is spent on
so-called primary care in our country." Dr. Federman discusses the reluctance of both doctors and patients to discuss the use of
alternative medicine, creating a "silent obligato of alternative medicine threading through so-called Western medicine, or the American
approach to medicine." In order to end this silence, medical schools have begun to develop programs on alternative medicine. Harvard
Medical School is among these, using an approach that focuses on research and studying the mechanisms involved with alternative medicine
with the intention of providing reliable answers that will advance the field.
Dr. Federman introduces the forthcoming speakers, Dr. Julie Buring and Dr. Andrew Nierenberg. Dr. Federman describes
Julie Buring as a nationally-known figure chosen to "represent or epitomize the excellence in research we hope for in our division of
complementary and alternative medicine." Andrew Nierenberg has worked at Massachusetts General Hospital doing first-class research on
alternative medicine and psychiatry. These two speakers have planned their sessions together.
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