Bastyr University

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Photos courtesy of Bastyr University

Students at Bastyr, above, are required to take more hours of basic and clinical science than many of the nation’s top medical schools. Bastyr’s new 32,00-square-foot teaching clinic, right, serves the university’s students and faculty as well as an ever-growing population of local patients.

Bastyr University

Moving health care forward naturally

by Danielle Rhéaume

T

he Seattle area has long been known as a center for biomedical research and education. Not so well known is that, tucked away on a wooded 51-acre campus east of Seattle is one of the world’s leading academic centers for the natural health arts and sciences—Bastyr University.

Formerly the home of St. Thomas Seminary, Bastyr’s beautiful campus is set within the 316-acre Saint Edward State Park in Kenmore—a small city on the shore of Lake Washington. The university has gained worldwide recognition for its rigorous natural-medicine-based curriculum and progressive research. “Bastyr’s students have tremendous passion not just to heal people, but to help people heal themselves,” said Dr. Jamey Wallace, Bastyr’s clinic director. “They are also passionate about changing the world and making a difference.”

Students who go to Bastyr to earn their undergraduate, graduate or doctoral degrees know they are not only choosing “the road less taken” academically and vocationally—they are also enrolling in a school that requires more hours of basic and clinical science than many of the nation’s top medical schools. Being a student at Bastyr also means being a caretaker of the land and a citizen of the campus. As part of their studies, students help maintain an on-campus organic garden complete with Chinese medical herbs, edible flowers, and culinary herb beds. Students use these plants to make tinctures and salves, or cook them in Bastyr’s state-of-the-art whole foods kitchen and laboratory. The university also uses the garden’s harvest in its award-winning gourmet vegetarian cafeteria.

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Like most universities, Bastyr has a library and reading room, a bookstore, laboratories, research rooms, conference and seminar facilities, administrative offices and dormitories. What they don’t have on campus—but do have strategically placed in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood—is their teaching clinic. This 32,000-square-foot facility, which Bastyr opened in February 2006, is the school’s second clinic, designed to satisfy the needs of Bastyr’s students and faculty as well as an ever-growing population of local patients.

In the progressive spirit of Bastyr, the new clinic was built using environmentally friendly materials. It features low-toxicity paints and adhesives, natural Marmoleum floors and an advanced air filtration system.

Within the 40 private-care rooms patients can receive a wide range of services, including acupuncture, naturopathic medicine, mental health counseling, nutritional counseling, physical medicine, and Chinese herbal medicine. Treatments are administered either by students working in collaboration with a faculty practitioner or, in some cases, by a faculty practitioner working alone in the private practice division of the clinic.

“One of the key benefits to visiting a teaching clinic, rather than a private one, is that patients are not only overseen by licensed providers—so they’re already getting excellent care—but they are also given more one-on-one attention from the students,” said Wallace. This collaborative, experiential approach to medicine provides extra sets of eyes, ears and hands for the student and practitioner to rely on, which provides better care for the patient.

One of the key differences between conventional and naturopathic medicine involves patient responsibility—preventative health care. While conventional doctors often only treat the symptoms of diseases, naturopathic doctors aim to uncover the cause of the symptoms—something that requires preventative and participatory care on behalf of the patient.

“The preventative approach to healthcare is not about just going to the doctor and saying, ‘I’m sick, fix me,’” said Tim Callahan, vice president for research and collaboration. “It’s about people taking charge of their own health.”

Sheldon Haber, Bastyr’s vice president for finance and administration, has managed Bastyr’s finances for 15 years. He has seen the positive impact of naturopathic healthcare on university staff and, as a result, the university’s finances. “Staff sick leave and costs have gone down over the years, and we believe it’s because we think in a health-advanced and preventative way.” He encourages other businesses to follow suit. “If businesses look at their bottom line, they will quickly see how supporting preventative care reduces costs over time.”

Callahan also contributes increased interest in naturopathic medicine to several reports the New England Journal of Medicine released in the early 1990s. One study, titled “Why Unconventional Medicine?” revealed, “In a given year about a third of all American adults use unconventional medical treatments, such as relaxation techniques, chiropractic, therapeutic massage, special diets, and megavitamins.” Soon after its release, conventional practitioners wanted to know more about these treatments. Despite some unflattering preconceived notions about naturopathic medicine, curiosity led them to schools like Bastyr University, which had already been reaching out for many years.

“Once [conventional] practitioners started talking to our clinicians and scientists, they quickly realized that they are rigorously trained in sciencebased natural medicine.” said Callahan. This quelled their fears and helped them realize they spoke a common language. Extensive collaboration began almost immediately. Today, Bastyr has collaborative relationships with many local health care providers, including Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Virginia Mason Medical Center, Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center, and Harborview Medical Center—as well as the University of Washington schools of medicine and nursing. “There’s a lot of synergy around what we can do together,” Callahan said.

“It’s nice to have them come to us, rather us beating down their doors!” said Daniel Church, Bastyr University’s president. In the past, naturopathic practitioners’ attempts to collaborate with conventional practitioners were downright discouraging. But in the two years that Church has been president of Bastyr he has seen interest in naturopathic care increase tremendously. In the past 15 years, as the school’s student body and patient pool grew, the university’s annual budget increased from $3 million to $28 million.

Much of Bastyr’s funding comes from student tuition, private contributions, and federal funds for research. They also bring in revenue from their bookstore, cafeteria, special events (like weddings and conferences), and clinic operations. A certain amount is earned in their clinic’s impressive dispensary, where patients can pick up naturopathic, homeopathic and oriental medicine prescriptions.

After renting space for many years, Bastyr finally purchased its campus in 2005 from the Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle for $11.8 million.

“We have been tenants; now we are owners,” Church said. “We have been tentative; now we are permanent. We have been hopeful; now we are exultant!” Church sees Bastyr’s relationship to their land as one of stewardship, rather than ownership, though he does claim with a smile, “There’s an affective difference between renting and owning—you can put your weight down when you step onto the place.”

Bastyr’s growth also recently led the university to join the Association of Washington Business. They joined “because the university is vitally concerned with many of the same issues AWB is—health care costs, the environment, ethical behavior in business, and a robust economy,” said

Church. “I am especially pleased that AWB is principally a grassroots kind of organization with the interests of small businesses supported by the clout of large ones. I don’t expect that we will agree with every position taken by AWB—whether on legislation or regulation—but I’m glad that we can be in on the debate. Such engagement is an essential dimension of the academic enterprise.”

Church’s words reflect Bastyr’s approach to advancement—advancement that is driven by principles encouraging curiosity, social engagement, and honest concern for the health and well being of others—all the way from the cellular, physiological level to the boardroom. There’s a lot of ground for them to cover, but thanks to the drive of their patients, students, faculty and staff they are leaving solid footprints as they occupy the landscapes of academics, business and medicine.

The chapel at Bastyr University—formerly the home of St. Thomas Seminary—is famous as one of the best recording spaces for large orchestras outside of Los Angeles. The chapel—a onefifth-scale model of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome—has dark oak pews, gold-accented chandeliers, Italian marble and “nearly perfect acoustics,” according to Sheldon Haber. Because of its impressive acoustics, gospel choirs and orchestras use the chapel as a recording space throughout the year. While standing on the terrazzo floors and looking up at the ornate windows, it’s easy to imagine musicians—their bows drawn across cello strings or sticks ready to strike the timpani—illuminated by beams of the chapel’s stained glass transfused light.