NED Planning Team Member
Victor S. Sierpina
Dr. Victor S. Sierpina, MD, is Associate Professor of Family Medicine with tenure at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston, Texas. He recently became the first designated W.D. and Laura Nell Nicholson Family Professor of Integrative Medicine. He graduated from the University of Illinois Abraham Lincoln School of Medicine as a James Scholar and completed Family Practice Residency at MacNeal Memorial Hospital in suburban Chicago. Since medical school he has integrated holistic medicine, alternative therapies, and wellness promotion in primary care. He was recently recognized as one of the Best Doctors in the USA in Family Medicine. Dr. Sierpina is board certified by the American Board of Family Practice and the American Board of Holistic Medicine. He has practiced in a holistic health center, worked with a group specializing in home birth, and was medical director of a group practice and urgent care center in the Chicago area for several years. Fulfilling a life dream, he practiced whole person medicine as "the Country Doc" in a federally-designated "frontier" mountain county in Colorado for many years before joining the faculty of UTMB. His practice and his personal life have long included the study of tai chi, acupuncture, meditation, Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine, nutritional, herbal and mind-body therapies. Dr. Sierpina is Principal Investigator on a $1.5 million, five-year National Institutes of Health grant to develop curriculum in alternative therapies that is evidence-based. He is a collaborator on several other research projects at UTMB related to spirituality and CAM practices. Designed for medical schools, nursing, allied health sciences, and continuing professional education, it is setting the standard for curriculum in this area. He also is the recipient of a three-year $900,000 NIH Exploratory and Development Grant in Mind-Body Medicine to create an expanded research infrastructure in mind-body medicine at UTMB. He is the author of a textbook, Integrative Health Care: Complementary and Alternative Therapies for the Whole Person as well as numerous scientific articles and publications. He serves on several national organizations and editorial boards as a consultant in alternative and integrative medicine. (vssierpi@utmb.edu, (409) 772-1847)