Dr Patel, founder of the Ravi and Naina Patel Foundation, realizes the need for the integrated health care system that the Maharishi Health Center will provide.

Maharishi College of Perfect Health receives founding grant
by Maharishi University of Management (MUM), Fairfield, IA, USA
7 September 2009

The Maharishi Health Center, a holistic clinic in scientific integrative medicine, will provide patient care and a clinical training facility for students in MUM’s planned medical school. The pre-medical undergraduate program, which started last semester, already has 20 students in the major.

The MCPH-MHC advisory board and MUM’s founding faculty hosted a strategic planning meeting from August 31 to September 1. With the support provided by this grant and other recent donations, the board and faculty are commissioning two outside consultants in hospital and health center development planning to assist MUM in drawing up a business plan and feasibility study for the health center.

The Maharishi Health Center will be the first aspect of the new academic medical center designed to provide hospital care, education, and clinical research. “Starting with the health center will allow us to showcase this unique approach of Maharishi Integrative Medicine,” said Dr. Robert Schneider, dean of the MCPH. “It will also provide inspiration for the second stage of the medical school as well as an educational setting for our current pre-med students.”

Over the past 20 years, Dr. Schneider and his colleagues have received more than $24 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for their research on the use of the Maharishi Ayur-Veda program and the Transcendental Meditation technique for preventing and treating cardiovascular disease.

Dr. Ravi Patel, an MUM trustee, is a clinical oncologist and founder and director of the Comprehensive Blood and Cancer Center (CBCC) in Bakersfield, California. Dr. Naina Patel, his wife, is an anesthesiologist who also works at the CBCC.

“I have been following Maharishi’s programs for many years,” Dr. Ravi Patel said. “Maharishi felt that a health care system which provided integrative care is what people needed. I feel that initiating this project is the right thing to do to fulfill Maharishi’s wishes.”

© Copyright 2009, Maharishi University of Management