Andrew Weil

Andrew Weil, MD (/waɪl/, born June 8, 1942) is an American celebrity doctor who is a physician, author, spokesperson, and broadly described "guru" of the alternative medical brands: holistic health and integrative medicine, whose names also constitute an emerging brand of healthcare services and products in these fields. Weil studied at Harvard in the early 1960s, bringing him into contact with social scientists David McClelland, Richard Alpert, and Timothy Leary. He graduated cum laude in 1964 from a biology major and a concentration in the ethnobotany of medicinal plants, following this with an Harvard M.D. in 1968, and fellowship years in San Francisco and at the National Institute of Mental Health. Throughout these periods, Weil displayed a strong curiosity regarding the emerging field of psychopharmacology, accessing it through study and personal experimentation. Weil then spent a decade with the Harvard Botanical Museum (1971-1984), and in personal travel, exploration, and writing focused on this field. His writings on the relationships between human consciousness, culture, healing, and drug experience appeared in regular contributions to High Times magazine (1975-1983), and in book-length works (The Natural Mind, 1972; The Marriage of Sun and Moon, 1980; From Chocolate to Morphine, 1983, rev. 1993 & 2004). Weil became interested in the ideas and practices of complementary and alternative medicine, and went on to play a seminal role in codifying and establishing the emerging field of integrative medicine, which aims to combine alternative medicine, conventional evidence-based medicine, and other practices into a higher-order "system of systems" to address human healing via action in multiple "dimensions" (biological, psychological, sociological, and spiritual). As of 2015, Weil serves as an academician at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, where he is Lovell-Jones Professor of Integrative Rheumatology, Clinical Professor of Medicine, and Professor of Public Health. In 1994, Weil founded and has since directed the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicin