The 2013 Dr. Rogers Prize for Excellence in Complementary and Alternative Medicine was awarded to Dr. Sunita Vohra of theUniversity of Alberta at a gala award dinner in Vancouver, BC. Dr. Vohra is the founding Director of Canada’s first academic pediatric integrative medicine program, CARE (Complementary and Alternative Research and Education), at theUniversity of Alberta. She is currently evaluating the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of pediatric integrative medicine as an adjunct to usual care at the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton. She has led many high quality studies of the effectiveness of CAM including ginseng for pediatric upper respiratory tract infection and Mind Body Stress Reduction for at risk youth. With her background in pediatrics, clinical epidemiology and clinical pharmacology, Dr. Vohra is a respected leader in both CAM and conventional medicine, often working to help these two communities connect. She founded Canada’s national pediatric CAM network as well as helped found and now chairs the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Section on Integrative Medicine. Dr. Vohra initiated the use of N-of-1 studies (a multiple cross over trial performed in a single person) as an innovative and patient-centered solution to the limitations of randomized controlled trials for individualized therapies. At the beginning of her career, at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, she recognized the importance of complementary and alternative medicine to her patients and their families and the lack of substantive information on the therapies and potential interactions with conventional care. She was recruited to the University of Alberta to implement her vision of the CARE program in 2003, a program which now trains the next generation of researchers, educators, and clinicians about pediatric integrative medicine. Founded in 2007, the $250,000 Dr. Rogers Prize for Excellence in Complementary and Alternative Medicine highlights the important contributions of complementary and alternative medicine to health care. Funded by Vancouver’s Lotte and John Hecht Memorial Foundation, the Prize is awarded every two years and is the largest of its kind in North America.
