Not long after that, Penny and I helped cofound an operating foundation, the Bravewell Collaborative. In testament to the strength of collaboration, in five short years the foundation has made incredible progress, including the development of a PBS documentary, The New Medicine, sponsored by Twin Cities Public Television and produced by Emmy Award–winner Middlemarch Films. Hosted by Dana Reeve, it aired in March 2006 on 516 stations in all 50 states and received a nomination for a Peabody Award.

Improving Outcomes
During our first year, we received a pro bono study by McKinsey & Co. (valued at $1 million) that analyzed the fundamental issues confronting integrative medicine. Based on those findings, we established the Bravewell Clinical Network, a group of eight leading centers across the country that deliver integrative medicine; we are currently helping these centers achieve sustainability. With our help, the Bravewell Clinical Network is also in the process of establishing the first-ever practice-based research network in integrative medicine, which will provide much-needed data in support of integrative medicine becoming the standard of care.

Nearly 80 percent of patients in the study safely avoided coronary bypass surgery or angioplasty by participating in an integrative medicine program.

My fellow philanthropists in the Bravewell Collaborative also recognized that changing the way physicians were educated was the key to changing the culture of medicine. So we funded the infrastructure of the Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine. Beginning as a group of six institutions, the network has grown in five years to include 36 highly esteemed medical schools that work to further integrative medicine. We also support a post-graduate clinical fellowship in collaboration with an integrative medicine program at the University of Arizona; we have awarded 52 fellowships.

Every movement and every cause needs leadership, so we established the Bravewell Leadership Award, a $100,000 award given every two years, that honors a leader in integrative medicine. We gave the first award in 2003. In November, we’ll honor six of the early leaders in the field with the Bravewell Pioneers of Integrative Medicine Award at a gala in New York.

Integrative medicine is now proving its real worth. By way of example, coronary heart disease is preventable in approximately 95 percent of people by simply changing nine health factors—all of which are related to diet and lifestyle, according to research published in The Lancet. Mind-body therapies such as relaxation techniques, imagery, biofeedback and hypnosis are used effectively by more than 30 percent of the adult U.S. population to treat conditions such as coronary heart disease, pain and anxiety. And a Mutual of Omaha study done in the 1990s reported that nearly 80 percent of patients enrolled in the study safely avoided coronary bypass surgery or angioplasty by participating in an integrative medicine program, which saved almost $30,000 per patient in the first year.

My passion for life’s interconnectedness and its relationship to health defines my life. Our family foundation funded the creation and construction of a 27,000-square-foot building on the Duke University Center for Living campus to house Duke Integrative Medicine, a philosophy of practice owned by the entire Duke University Health System. I am honored to serve as founding chair for its National Board of Advisors. Philanthropy is about sharing. I am grateful to be able to participate in something that will outlast me.

Photograph by Thomas Hart Shelby.