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DURHAM, N.C. -- Chancellor for Health Affairs Ralph Snyderman, M.D., said Monday that he will donate the $100,000 cash prize from the Bravewell Leadership Award to establish a new fund at Duke University to promote integrative medicine.

Snyderman was named in November as the inaugural recipient of the award by the Minneapolis-based Philanthropic Collaborative for Integrative Medicine, which "recognizes innovators of integrative medicine for their efforts to transform the culture of health care by establishing better methods of treating the whole person -- mind, body and spirit." The award included a $100,000 cash prize to be used at the awardee's discretion.

Snyderman has been a national leader in promoting the concept of "prospective health care," a personalized approach to health planning that would apply advances in genomics and other fields to promote health and prevent disease. The Bravewell Award Fund for Integrative Medicine at Duke University Medical Center will be used to help develop new approaches to prospective health care and integrative medicine, Snyderman said.

"A new model of prospective health care could provide individuals with their own personal health plans, identifying the diseases they are most likely to develop and providing the support they need to remain healthy and well," said Snyderman. For a detailed description of the power of integrative health care and Snyderman's views on its importance, see "Duke Leaders Propose Overhaul of Health Care and the Practice of Medicine."

"I am grateful to the Bravewell Committee and the Philanthropic Collaborative for Integrative Medicine for making these resources possible," Snyderman said. "It provides important support for my work at Duke so that it can provide continuing leadership in promoting an integrative approach that offers great promise for improving the health of people everywhere."