Integrated health promises to reduce rising health costs in the nation

The world of alternative medicine--meditation, yoga, acupuncture and a host of related therapies--will celebrate a coming-of-age moment on Nov. 30. In Durham, N.C., Christy Mack and her husband John Mack, chairman of investment bank Morgan Stanley, will officially open the Duke Center for Integrative Medicine. They personally financed the center with $10 million from the C.J. Mack Foundation.

The center represents an acknowledgment of sorts by the established medical community of the potential, yet highly controversial, benefits of these alternative therapies. The Duke Center will be open to anyone from across the globe, not just members of the Duke community. Cottages will be built in the woods nearby as living facilities for out-of-town visitors.

The idea for the Duke Center was the result of a collaboration between Dr. Ralph Synderman, former head of the Duke Medical Center, Dr. Tracey Gaudet, a Duke physician, and Christy Mack, who prefers the term "integrative medicine" over alternative medicine. The daughter of a Greensboro, N.C., doctor, she is heavily involved in the movement to blend treatments aimed at helping the mind and spirit with the use of conventional medicine like drugs and surgery. She believes that the former are just as essential to health as antibiotics and surgery or technological breakthroughs.

"The practice of medicine should be focused with an emphasis on the interconnectedness of mind, body, spirit and community," says Mack, who herself is a trained practitioner of Reiki, an ancient Eastern massage technique that she claims transmits energy to the patient.

To further the cause, Mack and a group of like-minded philanthropists five years ago formed a nonprofit organization, the Bravewell Collaborative.

Bravewell is not some flaky New Age group. Among its 29 members are Earl Bakken, founder of Medtronic (nyse: MDT - news - people ), the pacemaker company; Bruce Dayton, the former CEO of the Dayton Hudson retail store chain; and Bill Sarnoff, nephew of RCA founder David Sarnoff.

"We want Bravewell to be a catalyst for change, and we think we are reaching the tipping point," says Mack, who won't be satisfied until the medical establishment accepts her point of view as an integral part of their profession.

Her husband John Mack, a Wall Street titan, who himself is chairman of the board of trustees of New York Presbyterian Hospital, says he has been "moved by the passion and dedication of Christy's doctors to improving people's health by treating the whole person, not just the disease" by means of drugs and surgery. He has seen first-hand how one of his leading bankers came back from a debilitating illness by "taking up meditation seriously," Mack says, "even in the taxicab coming to work." The Macks, along with other Bravewell members, also raised money for the PBS special this year, "The New Medicine," which featured the use of hypnosis and guided imagery as techniques to reduce pain and help ill people lead active lives. The special won the Freddie Award for Health and Science Media in the area of health and wellness.