Universidade Federal do Ceará
Pró-Reitoria de Extensão

The Núcleo de Medicina Integrativa (Numi) – in English: Center for Integrative Medicine – was created past Tuesday (January 26th) at the Faculty of Medicine of the Federal University of Ceará (Universidade Federal do Ceará – UFC). This center will provide important training opportunities for health science students.

The Numi is coordinated by Professor Paola Tôrres, an onco-hematologist doctor who had a training in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona, USA, and a PhD in Pharmacology by the UFC.

The Center will bring together a number of outreach and research developed projects since 2013 at the University, such as Integrative Somaesthetics Practices of the Pentelementar Body, created by the Center of Somaesthetic Integration, under the coordination of Prof. Francisco Silva Cavalcante Júnior; the Institute of Physical Education and Sports; and the Transdisciplinary Project, Knowledge Ecology, Curriculum, Education and Resistance, coordinated by Prof. Patricia Limaverde, from the Department of Biology at the State University of Ceará.

Organized as a research movement within American universities since the mid-1970s, the Integrative Medicine proposes a paradigm shift in medical treatment: it ceases to have the disease as the main point of attention and comes to understand the illness of the patient in their interdependent causal relationships of mind, body and spirit.

In Integrative Medicine the patient (in this paradigm, named person) is seen as the responsible agent for his/her improvement and the concept of healing is expanded to restore the physical, mental and social well-being, as recommended by the World Health Organization. The definition of the Consortium of the Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine is “the practice which reaffirms the importance of the relationship between doctor and patient, focusing on the whole person, based on evidence, using all appropriate therapeutic approaches to achieve health and healing.”

EXTENSION AND RESEARCH – The main activity of Numi consists of the extension actions and research of Integrative Intensive Support Program and Revitalization (in Portuguese: Programa Intensivo Integrativo de Apoio e Revitalização – PRIINTAR) for patients in cancer treatment, using integrative and complementary practices such as meditation, yoga, body therapies and counseling in promoting the health of patients with cancer.

The PRIINTAR is offered for free, in Fortaleza, at the Wheel of Life Institute, a non-governmental philanthropic organization and the first clinic for Integrative Medicine of Brazil, recognized by the Federal Council of Medicine and the National Health Council. Its president is Professor Paola Tôrres.

Source: Center for Integrative Medicine, Department of Clinical Medicine of UFC – phone: 85 3366 8052