NDMU launches school of integrative health through merger

The use of integrative health practices, like yoga, mindfulness, acupuncture and herbal medicine continues to rise for managing chronic illness and pain, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and more. This shift, which emphasizes prevention, resilience and whole-person care, is reshaping how individuals and health care providers across the country think about and treat health and wellness. In 2002, fewer than one in five Americans reported using an integrative health practice — by 2022, that number had nearly doubled.

Against this backdrop of increased interest and growing shortages, the launch of Notre Dame of Maryland University‘s School of Integrative Health — a merger of the former Maryland University of Integrative Health into NDMU — couldn’t be more timely. Uniting the former MUIH’s wide range of integrative health programs, some of which are not offered anywhere else in the country, like an M.S. in Yoga Therapy and M.S. in Herbal Product Design and Manufacture, with NDMU’s established portfolio of conventional health care degrees, future integrative health and traditional health practitioners will gain deep expertise in their own fields while learning to collaborate across health care disciplines.

“This merger, in addition to educating more integrative health professionals, is building a health care workforce capable of working across disciplines to deliver truly whole person, patient-centered care,” says Christina Sax, inaugural dean of NDMU SOIH. This will “ultimately keep more people out of the hospital systems through practices that have been used for thousands of years.”

Sax says this collaborative model is what the future of health care education requires.

“When students look, for example, at nutrition and what nutrition is, they will also be exposed to what other health professionals do related to nutrition,” she explained. “They’ll understand other practices and unique perspectives and how both can positively affect a person’s health, on their own and when used with other health care modalities.”

“This will continue to build the relationships between complementary medicine and conventional medicine,” said Marybeth Missenda, NDMU SOIH associate professor and program director of integrative health studies. “Students and faculty will bring opportunities across disciplines that can translate into the community to advocate for a more whole-person care approach. Integrative health students will work alongside conventional medicine practitioners, including nurses, pharmacists and physician assistants, which is really living into our name.”

That collaboration shows up in NDMU SOIH courses like Missenda’s Introduction to Complementary and Integrative Health, where students learn to describe disciplines, communicate across professions and understand how fields intersect.

“Since collaboration between practitioners is one of the core parts of the definition of integrative health,” Missenda said, “learning that early on is an important part of their whole learning experience.”

With the addition of SOIH’s accredited programs, NDMU becomes the nation’s first comprehensive university to house a school solely dedicated to integrative health. Adding 17 online graduate-level integrative health and wellness degrees and certificates to NDMU’s conventional health care programs increases NDMU’s graduate student population by nearly 50% and significantly expands the university’s footprint to a national audience of students and practitioners.

The new school also opens countless possibilities for cross-disciplinary collaboration between integrative and conventional health care practitioners and those who support them, such as NDMU’s School of Nursing and School of Pharmacy & Health Professions. And even the NDMU business programs , opening opportunities for research into topics such as the financial and operational implications of incorporating integrative health into care.

NDMU SOIH faculty also set this new school apart: many are active practitioners, with private practices, corporate roles or community advocacy work. They bring their lived experience into the classroom, ensuring that students learn from professionals engaged in research and practice in this quickly evolving field.

“Having conventional and integrative health programs alongside one another provides opportunities for interprofessional collaboration among faculty to advance scholarship, research and holistic health care,” said Dr. Marylou Yam, NDMU President. “The NDMU School of Integrative Health complements our strengths in conventional health care degree programs, bolsters academic options for students and expands the footprint of integrative health education.”

According to Sax, the alignment between the two schools makes this integration a natural fit, in addition to representing a vision for the future of healthcare education. By combining integrative and conventional programs, future NDMU SOIH graduates will help reduce system strain, collaborate effectively and deliver the whole-person, patient-centered care today’s health care system urgently needs.

With its combined programs, practitioner-faculty, commitment to research and values-driven foundation, NDMU SOIH is poised to expand access, help meet demand and prepare a collaborative, compassionate workforce that can create healthier communities in Maryland and beyond. Whether teaching about using yoga to treat prehypertension and hypertension, acupuncture to reduce migraines or low back pain, herbal supplements to help with menstrual cramps and respiratory illness or nutrition to ease irritable bowel symptoms, “students will explore and consider two different philosophies,” Missenda explains.

“Holding these together is where we’re going to find greater understanding. It’s not an either-or conversation,” she added, “but rather a both-and conversation.”