Our History

Duke Integrative Medicine has its roots in the great tradition of collaboration and synergy at Duke University Health System.

In the early 1990s, a group of visionary medical doctors gathered together to discuss the vast possibilities for healing that exist in all of the scientific, cultural, and spiritual traditions. They formed a journal club, and, under the direction of Drs. Marty Sullivan, Larry Burk, and Jeffrey Brantley, they led discussions across all the academic disciplines at the university, and explored avenues for extending the boundaries of practice, research, and teaching at Duke. They held the first Duke Mind Body Spirit Conference in 1996, attracting more than 600 people from around the globe including leaders in the field Jon Kabat Zinn, Elmer Green, and Joan Borysenko.

Health System Chancellor Dr. Ralph Snyderman embraced the work of Drs. Sullivan, Burk, and Brantley with enthusiasm and brought a vision that extended beyond the walls of the University, imagining a living laboratory that could hold answers to many of the most systemic challenges to the American health care system. A Medical Center Planning Committee was formed to plan for a Center to hold this vision at Duke, and, with the support of a grant from the Duke Endowment, and with the leadership of Drs. Snyderman and Sullivan, The Duke Center for Integrative Medicine was founded in 1998. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) was the first public program offered by the Center under the direction of Dr. Jeffrey Brantley.

In 2000, Dr. Snyderman’s vision was catapulted forward when he hired Dr. Tracy Gaudet to lead the Center into a new century and when Christy Mack of the C.J. Mack Foundation stepped forward in partnership with a generous gift of support. Along with an endorsement across the faculty of the health system , they began to plan to build the state-of-the art healing environment executed by the masterful architecture firm Duda/Paine.

The doors of Duke Integrative Medicine opened in November 2006. The building was the very first medical facility in North Carolina to receive LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for its stewardship of the environment. In 2010, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) named the building a National Design Award winner, hailing it as a “beautiful project….powerful and effective… a masterfully executed project where plan, finishes, materials and philosophy seem to find common ground…an introspective healing environment.”

In January 2011, Dr. Gaudet left Duke Integrative Medicine to join the Veterans Health Administration in Washington, DC, where she is the first Director of its Office of Patient Centered Care and Cultural Transformation. Currently, Dr. Jeffrey Brantley serves as Interim Executive Director of Duke Integrative Medicine.