Complementary medicine at Exeter: the first 10 years.

Abstract

The Centre for Complementary Health Studies at Exeter was established following a proposal to the university that the popularity of complementary therapies merited an academic unit devoted to the subject. This initiative attracted a substantial donation from the Maurice Laing Foundation and led to the formation of the first University Chair of complementary medicine in the world. Professor Edzard Ernst was appointed to the chair in 1993 and became Director of the centre. In August 1996, complementary medicine at Exeter divided into two units; the Centre of Complementary Health Studies with a focus on teaching and the Department of Complementary Medicine, lead by Professor Ernst, and part of the university’s Postgraduate Medical School. At the last assessment, the section of the School containing the department achieved the RAE rating of 3A. Since 2002, the ‘Department of Complementary Medicine’ renamed ‘Complementary Medicine’, forms part of the newly established Peninsula Medical School at Exeter and Plymouth Universities with generous extended funding by the Maurice Laing Foundation. This endowment goes towards the running costs of the unit and also the funding of the ‘critical mass’ of co-workers. Funding for specific research projects comes from a diversity of organisations (see Table 1). The current funding consists of a mixture of both commercial and noncommercial sources, and the former is by far smaller than the latter. It is important to note that regardless of the source of funding for specific projects, Complementary Medicine maintains control over the work published from these projects; academic freedom is a prime issue for Professor Ernst and the Peninsula Medical School.