Our mission is to improve health, well being, and the quality of life of people by blending the best of Modern Western medicine with Traditional Chinese Medicine to provide healthcare that is safe, effective, affordable and accessible.
These words have inspired me throughout my career in medicine. Yet, healthcare as provided today seems to have lost sight of its focus: the patient.
Despite ground-breaking medical research findings and the development of life-saving surgical procedures and pharmaceuticals, our healthcare system has been shown to have many shortcomings. Not only have the accelerating costs been under scrutiny, questions are also being raised about the paradigm that leans heavily upon high-tech and invasive crisis intervention. Decades of debates have finally reached the historical juncture when major reforms to our healthcare system are now urgently needed.
Over the last forty years at UCLA, I have come into contact with many patients who suffer from health problems that have eluded solutions. In my effort to solve problems for my patients, I have become convinced that we need to rebalance our healthcare system to focus on patient-oriented care, prevention, early disease recognition, and health promotion. Medical traditions other than the western biomedical model should also be recognized for their potential to heal both the current system and the human population.
This conviction is what inspired me to establish the UCLA Center for East-West Medicine in December 1993. Since then we have helped thousands of patients by blending the best of both modern western medicine and traditional Chinese medicine. Our programs in education, research, and resource development continue to nurture innovative ideas and effect change.
The successful outcomes of our approach tell us that we are in a unique position to transform healthcare toward a positive direction. I invite you to join us in our effort to make healthcare safe, effective, affordable, and accessible to everyone.
Ka-Kit Hui, M.D., F.A.C.P
Wallis Annenberg Professor in Integrative East-West Medicine
Founder and Director, UCLA Center for East-West Medicine
