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Jonas '77 to Present 1999 Speas Lecture ************************ Dr. Wayne B. Jonas, former director of the Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM) at the National Institutes of Health, will speak at Davidson College about "Promises and Pitfalls of Alternative Medicine" on Wednesday, April 7. The free public talk begins at 7 p.m. in the Gallery Room of Chambers Building, and is being presented as the college’s annual Frederick Womble Speas Lecture. Dr. Jonas, a 1975 Davidson graduate, currently serves as a faculty member at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md. He has conducted research in a number of conventional and alternative areas of medicine, and has trained in homeopathy, bioenergy therapy, diet and nutritional therapy, mind/body methods, spiritual healing, electro-accupuncture diagnostics and clinical pastoral education. He has conducted research and written about a variety of research approaches, including clinical trials, laboratory methods, outcomes research and meta-analysis. The NIH established its Office of Alternative Medicine in 1992 and Dr. Jonas led the office from 1995-1998. Its mission is evaluation and investigation of complementary, alternative and unconventional medical practices using appropriate, high-quality scientific methods, and facilitation of research in complementary and unconventional medical areas. He worked closely with the OAM prior to his presidency as a consultant on research education and methods. He chaired an OAM conference on alternative medicine research methodology in April 1995, and contributed to sections on research methods in an OAM report to the NIH entitled "Alternative Medicine: Expanding Medical Horizons." Dr. Jonas attended Bowman Gray School of Medicine and completed his residency training at DeWitt Army Community Hospital. A Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army, he was commander and clinical director of the 130th General Hospital in Dexheim, Germany. He then did research training at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, and later served as director of the medical research fellowship there. He is a board certified family practitioner, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians. His talk at Davidson is sponsored by the Medical Humanities Program. The F.W. Speas Lecture brings speakers to Davidson who focus on issues relevant to the provision of healthcare in our society. It honors a member of Davidson’s Class of 1943 whose promising career in medicine was cut short by leukemia, and was established by R. Dixon Speas in memory of his late brother. For more information on Dr. Jonas talk, call 892-2482. # # # Top of Page