Their numbers are growing, and so is their confidence. More and more respected mainstream physicians are blending traditional and alternative medicine—even when it means risking their reputations and security. What inspired this new breed of doctors to take the road less traveled?

Before I tell you how a new breed of doctors is changing the face of medicine, I'd like to make a confession: I believe. I believe in the brilliance of Western medicine, in the technological wonders of organ transplants, brain scans, and laparoscopic surgery—and I also believe that shamanic healers from indigenous cultures have discovered treatments for illnesses that traditional medicine can't touch, that the mind alone can trigger and then reverse illness, that dietary changes, along with vitamin and herbal supplements, can powerfully impact the course of disease. I believe in merging the best of both worlds—the orthodox and the alternative.

I'm not alone in my belief. This is a season of unprecedented possibility in medicine. And yet in spite of the tremendous changes, there is still resistance from mainstream medicine, as well as the government and the pharmaceutical industry. One can almost feel the tectonic plates of conventional and holistic medicine crashing up against each other and realigning the landscape of health care. Nutritionist Gary Null, Ph.D., an outspoken evangelist for alternative medicine, likens the intensity of the struggle to that "currently being faced by the Palestinians and Israelis, both trying to live in the same place, both seeking autonomy and protection."

But perhaps the greatest drama and triumph lies in the lives of the practitioners around the country who are melding these two kinds of health care into what may finally be known as integrative medicine.

"I see my life in the second half of the twentieth century as a series of extremes," says Nancy Eos, M.D. Dr. Eos had been an emergency room physician for 16 years when she discovered blood in her urine. A friend recommended a homeopathic physician who turned out to be Eos's former medical school teacher. Dr. Eos recalls, "Back then I remember her saying that she was thinking of quitting medicine, that she felt like she had nitrogen mustard, a chemotherapy medicine, in one hand and bean sprouts in the other, and one had to go. And here I was in a homeopathic interview with her 10 years later." When the homeopathic treatment cleared up Dr. Eos's condition, she began to study this form of healing. And she soon had her first chance to use it, when a girl came into the emergency room with epiglottitis, a potentially life-threatening swelling of the throat. "I gave the girl a remedy called aconite, and within seconds, she was breathing peacefully and asleep on her mother's lap," says Dr. Eos. "I overheard the mother ask the nurse if it was voodoo." Dr. Eos now practices a blend of conventional and alternative medicine with two other physicians in Grass Lake, Michigan.

Like Dr. Eos, many physicians took the orthodox route when training to become doctors, yet harbored secret passions for other avenues of healing. They were inspired by alternative medicine pioneers like Herbert Benson, M.D., an associate professor of medicine at Harvard University who 20 years ago brought meditation to America in his best-selling book, The Relaxation Response; Deepak Chopra, M.D., the endocrinologist who popularized ayurvedic and mind-body medicine: and Larry Dossey, M.D., who almost single-handedly legitimized the study of prayer's impact on healing. But inevitably these doctors' stories are personal; tales of illness and transformation in their own lives, followed by struggles with colleagues and government agencies that range from mere cold shoulders to office raids by government agents and court trials.

"There is a moment when you know you've changed forever," says Richard Firshein, D.O., an osteopathic physician in New York City and author of Reversing Asthma. A lifelong asthmatic, Firshein was a medical attendant at the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine and taking eight different drugs for his condition when he was hospitalized and nearly died. He decided to adopt a holistic and nutritional approach to his illness and wean himself off all of the drugs he was taking. "I went through an amazing transformation," he says. "And it was then that I realized I couldn't practice conventional medicine, even if it put me at risk professionally. Alternative medicine is a movement inspired by patients, and by doctors who became patients." Indeed, a famous 1993 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that in 1990, 34 percent of Americans used "nonconventional" therapies, paying an estimated $10.3 billion out-of-pocket for such treatments.

Doctors and patients may have inspired the movement, but now institutions and the government are beginning to respond. At last count, 34 of the country's 125 medical schools were offering courses in alternative medicine. Congress just voted to appropriate $12 million in 1997 for the Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM) at the National Institutes of Health, a 37 percent increase over 1996. The OAM has already funded 42 small studies at places like Harvard Medical School, Columbia University, and Stanford University. In the summer of 1996, Congress held hearings on the Access to Medical Treatment Act, a bill that will allow individuals to request their treatment of choice from a licensed health care practitioner, if all of the potential hazards of the treatment are disclosed and patients sign a consent form.

It was estimated by the end of 1997 that 18 separate insurance companies around the country would cover holistic treatments like homeopathy, chiropractic, and herbal medicine. Oxford Health Plans made the front page of the Wall Street Journal in October of 1996, when they announced they would establish a network of 1,000 holistic providers. Another managed care plan, Community Health Plan (CHP), gave credit to its certified nurse midwives for bringing the plan's cesarean-section rate down to 15 percent—almost 10 percent lower than the national average.

But change has not always come easily, especially for the doctors forging integrated medicine. "Mainstream derision of anything new is so fierce that you have to be very secure and have a great sense of humor in order to hold your ground and still maintain the respect of your colleagues," says Christiane Northrup, M.D., an obstetrician-gynecologist in Yarmouth, Maine, who blends traditional medicine with nutrition, homeopathy, and energy medicine, including intuitive diagnosis and healing. Dr. Northrup believes medicine is undergoing a massive cultural shift. "We're the crossover doctors, and what we're all being confronted with is how conventional and alternative medicine can help each other. Twenty years ago, I used to have to close my door when I talked to a patient about nutrition for fear my colleagues would hear me. Now that information is on the front page of the New York Times. But there's still a great deal of resistance to change. For example, the drug taxol, which costs about $5,000 per course of ovarian cancer treatment, received tremendous attention because it lengthens life by several months. Around the same time, an impeccable mind-body study on women with metastatic breast cancer, published in the Lancet in 1989, found that women who went to a support group lived an average of 18 months longer than women who didn't. That study received far less attention. If support groups were a drug, it would be considered unethical not to use them in every case of illness."

Dr. Northrup came to alternative medicine by way of her own experience. While growing up, she suffered from chronic migraine headaches and at age 13 was hospitalized for a week. It wasn't until she was 19 that she understood her headaches were stress-related and that her stress was self-induced, triggered by her hard-driving type A personality. That perception alone, she says, seemed to shift her out of biochemical overdrive. Now 47, she has had only three headaches in the last 28 years. "We don't change unless we're personally touched by something," Dr. Northrup says.

Elliot Dacher, M.D., author of Whole Healing, was director of the Kaiser Permanente Health Plan in Washington, D.C., from 1975 to 1983. In 1985, Dr. Dacher's romantic relationship ended and he developed ulcerative colitis. He decided to quit his job and spent the next year on his own healing. He took a colitis drug that at the time was experimental and regularly went for guided visualization sessions where he was asked to create images for his sense of emptiness and despair. During one session, Dr. Dacher says he felt a "profound joy and ecstasy, a sense of oneness and connectedness with all things." So while the drug may have helped quiet his colitis, Dr. Dacher believes visualization is what turned his life around. As a result, he says, he was able to go back and practice medicine "in a deeper, richer way."

Suffering patients are another catalyst that inspires doctors to seek out less-traditional methods of medicine. "I was seeing patients who'd had one heart attack after another," recalls Bruno Cortis, M.D., a cardiologist who founded the Exceptional Heart Patients Program in River Forest, Illinois, and is the author of Heart & Soul. "I cried when I saw people dying," he says. "Doctors cry alone most of the time and don't share that experience."

To combat heart disease—Dr. Cortis says the disease takes a life every 34 seconds in this country—he suggests patients follow his program which, in addition to conventional medication and surgery, includes lifestyle and dietary changes, support groups, meditation, spirituality, and self-empowerment. "The number of patients interested in this approach is small," says Dr. Cortis, "but I believe they are the most fortunate ones."

Like Dr. Cortis, many crossover physicians work with their patients, discussing options and arriving at treatment plans together. "Sometimes it feels like a mind meld," says Firshein. "I encourage my patients to bring me information from articles, books, and television shows. If I haven't heard of a particular treatment, I'll research it. It's like having thousands of eyes instead of just your own."

Edward Linkner, M.D., a physician in Ann Arbor, Michigan, who teaches holistic medicine to medical students, interns, and residents at the University of Michigan, agrees. He says he often takes time to meditate with his patients. "I assume that each patient has something to teach me," he says. "When both patient and doctor are healed by an encounter, that encounter is complete."

Remarkably often, alternative approaches treat chronic illnesses more efficiently and cheaply than orthodox methods. Each year we spend nearly a trillion dollars on health care services and products, and insurance companies carry most of that financial burden. So now they are turning to enterprising crossover doctors who have proven that their methods can cut costs. Stranger bedfellows one couldn't find: the big behemoths of the insurance industry, and the doctors who have championed a grassroots movement. This is a decade that has been marked by radical shifts in the economics of health care through the precipitous use of HMOs, and by the invention and refinement of ever more specialized, expensive diagnostic and surgical techniques. Many Americans have felt abandoned by their doctors, and doctors in turn have felt abandoned by the system itself. Now the system is beginning to change, spurred on in part by entrepreneurial alternative doctors who understand how important cost effectiveness is.

Samuel Benjamin, M.D., is a case in point. He is program director at the Arizona Center for Health and Medicine, a facility that employs six physicians and eight full-time "equivalents" who offer approaches such as herbal medicine, body work, meditation, and visualization. When Dr. Benjamin's daughter was born prematurely—weighing in at two pounds, one ounce—he made sure she received true integrated medicine: the best in conventional care, as well as therapeutic touch, prayer, and stimulation with colors, pleasant smells, and music. His little girl is now five years old and healthy. Dr. Benjamin offered the same approach to his mother-in-law when she developed breast cancer six years ago. She underwent a lumpectomy and radiation, but at Dr. Benjamin's suggestion she also began praying, practicing guided visualization, and taking coenzyme Q 10 (a nutrient known to have a protective effect against breast cancer) and an herbal formula called Essiac, which is reputed to have anticancer properties. At her last checkup she was cancer-free.

But it's not Dr. Benjamin's beliefs that have captured the attention of the Mercy Family Health Centers network, whose parent company is Catholic Healthcare West, the fifth largest health care provider in the U.S. It's his financial success. When one insurance company compared 300 patients at Dr. Benjamin's center with patients with similar diagnoses—such as autoimmune diseases, lower back pain, or migraines—who were not seen at the center, the trends were startling. Treatment costs were cut by 56 percent. Emergency room visits were down. The level of patient satisfaction was 92 percent at the center and 76 percent outside. "I'm not against managed care," says Dr. Benjamin. "It's one of the champions of alternative medicine in this country."

Dr. Benjamin plans to expand the Arizona Center's services so that it will serve 2.6 million state residents. Meanwhile, he continues to help his patients. He tells of a 43-year-old woman who had been suffering from rheumatoid arthritis and was taking powerful anti-inflammatory drugs and steroids, along with the drugs Zantac and Prilosec to treat their side effects. Dr. Benjamin treated the woman with acupuncture, guided visualization, and the anti-inflammatory herb ginger, which costs about seven dollars a month. He also sent her to a wellness support group that meditates and discusses their problems in a positive way. The results were "nearly miraculous," Dr. Benjamin says. "Her inflammation decreased, the mobility of her joints increased, she's back at work, she's off her medication, and we substantially decreased the cost of her care."

Even physicians in solo practice are beginning to talk about cost cutting. Robert Ivker, D.O., a family physician in Littleton, Colorado, and president of the American Holistic Medical Association, says he cured himself of sinus problems through a holistic approach that included changing his diet, his lifestyle, and his attitude. "Half a million sinus surgeries are performed every year," he says. "Each surgery can cost up to $10,000, so Americans are spending close to $5 billion on sinus surgery alone." Ivker tells of one patient who recently came to him after suffering with sinusitis for six years and undergoing four separate surgeries. By changing his diet, cleaning up his environment, and treating his allergies, the patient improved dramatically in just three months. "The treatment cost under $1,000, and he says he's been reborn," says Ivker. "There's an unprecedented opportunity now for alternative medicine to work with the managed care industry, and eventually attract the entire medical community."

To that end, research under the auspices of universities and the OAM may prove crucial. The OAM has already funded small studies on everything from homeopathy to visualization. A pilot study on the efficacy of mental imagery in the treatment of asthma, for instance, conducted by psychiatrist Gerald Epstein, MD., in conjunction with Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, found that imagery exercises helped 47 percent of patients decrease or discontinue their medications.

The OAM is currently funding studies at 10 top universities, on everything from allergies to cancer, aging, and chronic pain. A typical study, at the Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine Research in Women's Health at Columbia University, will compare the diagnosis and treatment plan offered to women seen by both Chinese and Dominican doctors. The study will analyze the botanical medicines prescribed in the two cultures for common conditions, to see whether the plants share any chemical properties. "Our assumption is that they will," says Fredi Kronenberg, Ph.D., director of the center.

Kenneth Pelletier, M.D., a clinical associate professor of medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine's Center for Research in Disease Prevention, reports that researchers and insurance companies have collaborated to talk about the kind of data that's needed to create standards in the field of alternative medicine. Companies that attended the meeting included Blue Cross & Blue Shield, Prudential Insurance Company of America, the National Institutes of Health, and the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research. According to Dr. Pelletier, they discussed the most credible therapies and their cost efficiency.

There's no doubt that we're in the midst of a health care revolution that may eventually stitch mainstream and alternative approaches into one integrated medicine. As of today, however, battles are still erupting, and many doctors continue to be afraid to embrace the unorthodox. "As the movement for a new medicine gains momentum, powerful, critical voices are being raised," notes psychiatrist James Gordon, MD., director of the Center for Mind-Body Medicine in Washington, D.C., and author of Manifesto for a New Medicine. Dr. Gordon, who refuses to prescribe any drugs, except as an "absolute last resort," says he helps wean many of his patients from their prescriptions—even those with serious psychiatric disorders such as manic-depression—through a blend of talk therapy, acupuncture, osteopathy, herbal therapies, meditation, physical exercise, and nutrition. He says he views psychiatric disorders as "human experiences to be learned from."

Dr. Gordon's impeccable credentials—he attended Harvard Medical School, was a chief resident at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and was a researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health—may have protected him from attack by colleagues and medical boards. But other alternative doctors have not been so fortunate. On May 6, 1992, armed agents representing the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) raided the Tacoma, Washington, office of Jonathan Wright, M.D., taking his office equipment, patient files, bank records, and supplements—in front of his astonished patients. No charges were ever brought against the doctor, although over $100,000 was spent in his defense, for grand jury, hearings and court petitions, and the government still has not returned all of his medical equipment. According to FDA Hotline, a newsletter published by journalist Dennis Blank, Dr. Wright is one of over 30 physicians who've been similarly attacked during the past five years. In October 1994, John Gambee, M.D., had his license revoked by the Oregon Board of Medical Examiners, who questioned some of his diagnoses and treatments. "I'd been in practice for 25 years," says Dr. Gambee, "and never had a malpractice case. The board has received hundreds of letters of support. But I still had to shut down my practice."

Another crossover physician, John Laird, M.D., who practices nutritional and energy medicine in Santa Fe, New Mexico, was brought up on charges of fraud by North Carolina's Medical Board when he practiced there. From 1984 to 1994, Dr. Laird fought the charges while, he says, the board nearly crushed alternative medicine out of existence in the state. "In 1990, the state Supreme Court said the medical board could revoke the licenses of physicians using therapies that were not 'usual and customary,'" he says. "I founded an organization of 6,000 citizens called Carolinians for Health Care Access. We lobbied, and in 1994 won the right to have doctors practice alternative therapies. It was a very intense and scary time for me."

Another physician, Eric Braverman, M.D., of Skillman, New Jersey, had his license suspended in 1996. Dr. Braverman diagnoses mental disorders by mapping brain activity with PET scans and practices "orthomolecular nutrition," which includes a combination of high-potency supplements, nutrients, and natural hormones.

Last fall, Grace Ziem, M.D., a Baltimore, Maryland doctor specializing in occupational medicine, accused ABC News reporter John Stossel of illegally tape-recording her without her permission for a news special. ABC denies any illegal taping. Dr. Ziem is a Harvard and Johns Hopkins University-educated doctor who often treats patients diagnosed with multiple chemical sensitivity, an illness that can occur after exposure to toxic chemicals. She says Stossel sent two young women claiming to have symptoms of the disorder to see her.

"It felt like an attempt at professional assassination," says Dr. Ziem. Though she says she's very much a mainstream doctor, "science marches on. Medicine has always advanced because of physicians' observations. I perform extensive lab tests before developing individualized treatment programs for my patients."

Stories of harassment, tarnished reputations, and suspended licenses have sent ripples of fear throughout the entire alternative medicine community. Even those doctors whose trailblazing efforts have been met with acceptance and warmth worry about revealing the full extent of their holistic approach. "I'd been on staff at Maine Medical Center since 1979," says Dr. Northrup, "but I never said the things that I wrote about in my 1994 book, Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom. I'd led the kind of double life many alternative doctors lead. I finally decided to take a chance and bring both worlds together." Dr. Northrup wrote about women's health, but she also covered near-death experiences, chakras, and energy medicine. She says that after the book was published she was afraid she'd be marginalized and never able to practice in a conventional setting again. To her surprise and relief, her colleagues didn't mention the book, and hospitals began inviting her to speak at their women's centers.

Perhaps the new openness in medicine is best expressed by Eric Leskowitz, M.D., a psychiatrist at the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. Leskowitz's unit treats patients with chronic pain, and the psychiatrist helped bring many alternative treatments to the program. "We use biofeedback, imagery, acupuncture, self-hypnosis, meditation, therapeutic touch, and some practitioners are now experimenting with energy healing," he says. "In fact, the former head of our department, Richard Weintraub, M.D., who's still at the hospital, recently trained as a homeopath. And we're just finishing up a study on the impact of homeopathy on patients with head injuries, funded by the OAM."

Homeopathy and psychiatry? The frontiers of medicine are truly being redefined. How did we come so far—and why have physicians been willing to risk so much? The answer seems to be that the marriage of both disciplines heals more patients—and heals doctors in the process. Dr. Dossey, one of the original visionaries, says, "It's not fulfilling to practice medicine as if human beings are machines. Doctors are spiritually hungry; they are becoming seekers, and this is far more than an intellectual adventure. It has become a personal search."

Since generic drugs and managed care have cut into many pharmacies' profit, it's no wonder many pharmacists are now looking to natural pharmaceutical products to boost their businesses. Though natural pharmacies may seem new, according to pharmaceutical chemist James Jamieson, Ph.D., of St. Louis, Missouri, both of whose parents were pharmacists, they harken back to the 1940s and 1950s tradition of compounding remedies and filling capsules by hand for doctors. Of course that all changed when drug companies began patenting medications and the age of "molecule manipulation" began. For instance, cortisone was originally manufactured from wild yams. Then the cortisone molecule was manipulated into the far more potent hydrocortisone, and manipulated once again into the even more potent prednisone.

"Now people are going back to nature," says Jamieson, "and pharmacists can give them the information they want. Let's say someone runs to the health food store and buys ginseng and ma huang, two powerful herbs that combat fatigue. If that person is also on an antidepressant that's an MAO inhibitor, they could die from ingesting that combination of herbs and drugs. Pharmacists are qualified to help customers make decisions about what to take."

At present, doctors practicing alternative medicine rely on a handful of natural pharmacies, many of which specially compound preparations. Natural pharmacies carry medicines and drugs, as well as vitamin supplements, botanicals, herbal remedies, homeopathic preparations, and natural beauty products, says Mary Ann Liebert, the publisher of over 50 medical journals. Last October, Liebert's company launched Natural Pharmacy, a new trade magazine. Pioneering natural pharmacies include Hickey Chemists in New York City (212-223-6333), College Pharmacy in Boulder, Colorado (800-888-9358), Women's International Pharmacy in Madison, Wisconsin (800-279-5708), and Apothecure in Dallas, Texas (800-203-2158).

Some of these pharmacies, however, are now being inspected and their selling curtailed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In April 1996, when the FDA received reports of skin infections from a contaminated batch of injectable adrenal cortex extract (ACE), a drug the agency has not approved, it recalled all such products on the market. In addition, the FDA recently investigated the Apothecure pharmacy, which had distributed ACE. After its owner and pharmacist Gary Osborn agreed to voluntarily recall all of his injectable products, he says he lost $50,000 in income and had to fire 20 percent of his staff. The agency also required the pharmacy to put prescription labels on every compounded medication (specially made at the pharmacy) going to doctors. This means doctors can't stock up on compounded medications and must wait until they arrive to administer them to patients.

The good news is that in September of 1997, the first Congress on Natural Pharmacy was presented in Arlington, Virginia.

When some doctors cross over to alternative realms of medicine, they go far beyond herbs and acupuncture to a universe of invisible energy. They believe doctors of the next millennium may make diagnoses merely by passing their hands over a patient's "energy" field, or seeing into the body and organs to sense the nature and location of an illness.

One physician experimenting with energy medicine is Mehmet Oz, M.D., a prominent cardiothoracic surgeon at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City, who works with an energy healer named Julie Motz when he's performing open-heart surgery. In 1994, Dr. Oz invited Motz, a healer for eight years, into the operating room. The next year, he set up the Cardiac Complementary Care Center, proposing therapies in diet, meditation, hypnosis, bodywork, and energy medicine. Motz believes that energy is gathered into the body through seven centers along the spine, called chakras, and distributed from these centers to organs and tissue. Motz says she guides energy up the chakras and removes blocks. When energy healing is added to the treatment of patients recovering from heart disease, they seem to recover more quickly, with less infection and pain, according to Dr. Oz.

Some doctors perform needed energy healing themselves. Robert Jaffe, M.D., of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, says that he began to see auras and energy fields when he was in medical school. "I was in my third year and a teacher asked us to diagnose patients after giving us only a few hints about their conditions," says Dr. Jaffe. "I looked at a patient and heard the word, 'pancreatitis.' I told my teacher and his mouth dropped open."

Today, at his School of Energy Mastery, headquartered in Sedona, Arizona, Dr. Jaffe, his wife, Birgitta, a hypnotherapist, and his staff teach skills such as energy healing, self-healing, and clairvoyant diagnosis, where a practitioner intuits a patient's illness without prior information or diagnostic tests to help. "The fundamental teaching is that disease comes as a friend and teacher," says Jaffe. "You can cut it out, burn it out, medicate it, palliate it, but it will still be there in some form, until you get the teaching within the disease." One former student, now on Dr. Jaffe's faculty, is John Laird, M.D. "My world view was shattered every day for the first six weeks of training," says Dr. Laird. "We were being taught to tap into parts of ourselves that knew things we just couldn't explain rationally." Now Dr. Laird has added clairvoyant diagnosis and energy healing to his blend of conventional and alternative treatments. One of Dr. Laird's more remarkable experiences occurred during Dr. Jaffe's class in Italy. A student who was a Viennese holistic physician decided to give birth in front of the class, attended by Drs. Laird and Jaffe and a midwife. "At one point as she was progressing in her labor she experienced sharp pain in a scar from a previous cesarean section." says Dr. Laird. "I looked energetically at the scar, and discovered that she was carrying resentment toward her husband from a previous birth. Initially, he'd been given the baby to hold, and she'd wanted to hold her newborn. She felt ignored. I asked her to forgive her husband, to release the resentment. She did and the pain vanished and her labor progressed."

Eric Leskowitz, M.D., a psychiatrist at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, who practices both alternative and conventional medicine, says that for his private practice he regularly consults psychologist Ken Coles, Ph.D., of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, who's also an accomplished clairvoyant. "I believe spiritual healing, intuitive diagnosis, prescient dreams, and miraculous healings will eventually be understood as precisely and objectively as mechanics or electricity," he says.