The academic medical center of the future: a center for integrative study

The integrative sciences, which are of great practical and conceptual interest, investigate complex systems (cells, multicellular organisms, families, institutions, communities, nations, etc.) at the higher levels of organization. Academic medical centers are intrinsically integrative because of their mission and thus are likely places for integrative study to flourish. They also possess vast resources of the kind needed to implement integrative studies. They can thus begin to address, from a scholarly point of view, a variety of integrative issues: how myriad parts (molecules, cells, organisms) form stable, complex, living wholes; the dynamics of health, illness, healing, dying, and death; problems of integration relating to patient care, health care delivery systems, and medical education. If academic medical centers undertake this mission they can be springboards for scholarly advances that will potentially affect all areas of thought. The authors describe how an integrative studies program can be started, and share the experiences of the University of Kentucky's Office of Integrative Studies.