Orthodox and complementary medicine unite

Queensland Health Minister Wendy Edmond will launch the new Australian Centre for Complementary Medicine Education and Research (ACCMER) in Brisbane on Tuesday, March 26, heralding a new era of collaboration between mainstream orthodox health disciplines and complementary medicine.

The Centre is a joint venture between The University of Queensland (UQ)’s Faculty of Health Sciences, in Brisbane, and Southern Cross University (SCU)’s School of Natural and Complementary Medicine, part of the Faculty of Health and Applied Sciences, based in Lismore, in northern NSW.

“Our vision for ACCMER is that it becomes a world-class research and education centre, delivering innovative health benefits through a unique multi-disciplinary approach combining complementary and conventional medicine,” said ACCMER Director, Professor Stephen Myers.

“We already can claim to be one of the largest centres of natural medicine research in the country, and we’ve got the resources to rapidly move the Centre to a major leadership position,” Professor Myers said.

As part of the Centre’s educational brief, it is developing post-graduate courses in complementary medicine tailored to meet the needs of orthodox health professionals, with the first courses being offered to pharmacists from next year, and likely to be extended to doctors and dentists after that, he said.

ACCMER’s other main focus is research: mainly collaboration between SCU and UQ, but on a wider scale as well. Leading scientists from nine major complementary medicine research centres from around Australia will join representatives from the natural medicine industries for a one-day Complementary Medicine Research Symposium, to be held before the launch.

The Health Minister will be joined by the vice-chancellors of both UQ, Professor John Hay; and SCU, Professor John Rickard; Executive Dean of Health Sciences at UQ, Professor Peter Brooks; and Professor Myers, who is a medical doctor with a PhD in clinical pharmacology, as well as a qualified naturopath.

The launch will be held in the Lady Thiess Room, Customs House, at 6pm (drinks from 5pm).

Media enquiries: For further information, please contact Sara Crowe, Media Unit, Marketing and External Relations, SCU (telephone 02 6620 3144) or Marlene McKendry, Faculty of Health Sciences, UQ (telephone 07 3346 4713, mobile 0401 996 847).

For more information on ACCMER and symposium, see ww.uq.edu.au/accmer