Announcing Our New Name: Osher Center for Integrative Health

We are excited to announce that we have changed our name from the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine to the Osher Center for Integrative Health to better align with our mission to promote whole-person care for all. The nine-university network of Osher Centers that we coordinate will now be called the Osher Collaborative for Integrative Health.

The integrative health field has been known by different names over time—folk medicine, alternative and complementary medicine, and, most recently, integrative medicine. Each successive term more accurately captured the essence of the field. The term medicine, though, evokes medical treatments or disease management rather than the promotion of well-being and prevention of illness that characterize integrative health. Our new name’s emphasis on health also better reflects the interprofessional nature of the field: not only physicians, but nurses, acupuncturists, and many other health professionals make up the integrative health workforce. Our new name also highlights our commitment to integrative health equity: promoting the attainment of the highest level of health and well-being for all people.

We believe that integrative health best represents the ultimate goal of the clinical services, education, and research being conducted across the UCSF Osher Center and the Osher Collaborative.

Our new name—the Osher Center for Integrative Health—signals the future direction of the field, one that is focused on health and wellness, inclusive of interprofessional diversity, and aligned with the values of health equity.