About Us
Mission
The vision of the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Health is to nurture health and inspire well-being in all people. This ultimate goal is supported by our mission to:
- Provide the highest quality healthcare by blending proven conventional and complementary medicine approaches from around the world,
- Create outstanding integrative health leaders through transformative education and training, and
- Advance the science of integrative health by conducting and disseminating rigorous research.
Values
Our work is guided by and infused with a commitment to the values of:
- Whole-person care: Our comprehensive, team-based approach acknowledges all aspects of each individual — body, mind, and spirit
- Equity: We welcome and respect all people, value diversity, and strive for inclusivity. We are committed to improving integrative health care for members of medically underserved communities
- Compassion: We foster empathy and attend to the influence of social, cultural, and historical contexts on health, health behaviors, and access to health care
- Collaboration: We promote interprofessional teamwork among our clinicians, educators, and researchers, and build partnerships across UCSF and internationally
- Focus on wellness: We emphasize health promotion and illness prevention, as well as treatment of disease
- Empowerment: We provide resources and tools that cultivate resilience and engage each person’s unique healing abilities
The Osher Center for Integrative Health is housed in the Osher Building, located on the UCSF Mount Zion Campus. The five-story structure was designed by KMD Architects with the goal of creating a healing environment. The exterior of the building, veneered in brick and wood resin materials, was designed to be responsive to the surrounding neighborhood, and the construction followed sustainable building practices that received LEED Silver certification from the United States Green Building Council. The interior space of the Osher Center incorporates nature, natural light and fresh air, simply organized spaces, and pleasant colors and textures. Spaces are intimate and friendly and promote relaxation.
The Osher Center also includes features not typically found in conventional medical clinics or academic institutions, such as large group rooms for yoga and meditation instruction, the Takahashi Japanese Healing Garden, and treatment rooms for acupuncture, massage therapy, biofeedback, and mind-body awareness.
Our facility contributes to the well-being of its staff and faculty occupants and supports the healing process of patients.
Our History: UCSF and Integrative Health
Established in 1864, the University of California, San Francisco, is a world-renowned center of science, scholarship, and health care, with 3,300 graduate students, 1,000 postdoctoral fellows, 3,000 faculty members, and 22,000 staff members. From the discovery of cancer-causing oncogenes, to the first successful fetal surgery, to the revolutionary cloning of DNA, UCSF has earned a reputation of the highest caliber for excellence in research, teaching, and patient care.
In 1998, under the visionary leadership of Dean Haile T. Debas, and with support from The Bernard Osher Foundation, UCSF established the Osher Center for Integrative Health. Dean Debas believed that UCSF, as one of the top-ranked biomedical research and teaching institutions in the United States, needed to take the lead in studying integrative medicine, educating its learners so that they could advise their patients about these approaches, and providing a clinical service that integrated these therapies into care. The UCSF Osher Center became the first center of its kind to comprise fully developed integrative programs in clinical care, education, and research.
We are now one of the leading integrative health institutes in the world. Our strengths include robust, multidisciplinary research and education programs in integrative medicine, as well as clinical services that provide an optimal healing environment for patients and a range of approaches for individuals and families seeking health and well-being.
The Osher Collaborative
After the founding of the initial Osher Center at UCSF, Osher Centers were established at academic institutions across the United States and in Sweden. Eleven Osher Centers now make up the Osher Collaborative for Integrative Health. Through the partnership represented by the Osher Collaborative, these eleven centers work together to maximize the success and impact of their evidence-based care, teaching innovations, and scientific research.
Thanks to an endowment from The Bernard Osher Foundation in 2018, the UCSF Osher Center became the permanent home of the Coordinating Center for the Osher Collaborative for Integrative Health, facilitating joint initiatives among the Osher Centers around the world.
The Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine & Health
The UCSF Osher Center is a founding member of the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine & Health, established by eight academic health centers in 1999. The mission of the Consortium is to advance the principles and practices of integrative healthcare within academic institutions and health systems.
