November 8, 2002 – At Laval University, an important step has been taken for the promotion of alternative and complementary medicine (CAM). The Rector of the University, Mr. Michel Pigeon and the President of the Chagnon Foundation, Mr. André Chagnon, announced yesterday the launch of the “Lucie and André Chagnon Chair for the Advancement of an Integral Approach to Health”.
The Chair will be headed by DD Sylvie Dodin, associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Laval University and gynecologist in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Saint-François-d’Assise Hospital at CHUQ. DD Dodin has been working for ten years to promote the overall health of women and more particularly of women going through menopause. In a recent interview with PasseportSanté.net, DD Dodin declared on the mission of the Chair: “It is about promoting the use of alternative medicines to improve the state of health of the population in general. It’s very broad, but it ties in with the WHO strategy on the subject. It is about integrating these approaches in the same way that we are currently adopting new conventional therapies, that is to say based on literature reviews and evidence. We want to promote the use of CAM to meet public expectations, but to do so, we need to evaluate these approaches and determine which ones are effective and safe based on evidence. ”
The Chair has four main objectives: the establishment of a network of experts made up of doctors and alternative practitioners; the integration of CAM in medical education (1st cycle, residency program, continuing education); research on CAM and dissemination of results (in addition to the creation of a training and discussion platform) through the PasseportSanté.net site and the Info-prevention project, a help and information service in health prevention.
Thanks to the financial support of $ 1.25 million from the Chagnon Foundation in partnership with its “Institute for the Advancement of an Integral Approach to Health”, the Faculty of Medicine of Laval University becomes the first in Canada to establish a chair dedicated to promoting teaching and research on alternative and complementary medicine.
Stéphane Gagné – PasseportSanté.net
