Dateline DFCI
Zakim Center for Integrative Therapies set to begin providing complementary services
The late Leonard Zakim was a powerful advocate for using complementary therapies.
More than four years after it was first envisioned, a program focused on providing complementary therapy services to patients undergoing cancer treatment at Dana-Farber has been established. The Leonard P. Zakim Center for Integrative Therapies honors the memory of a man known for his dedicated efforts to fight bigotry and promote racial unity as executive director of the New England Region of the Anti-Defamation League. At Dana-Farber, Zakim was known as an advocate for patients seeking an integrated approach to care that embraced complementary therapies. He was also known for his own valiant struggle with multiple myeloma.
Months before his death on Dec. 2, 1999, Zakim was able to see the integrated approach he supported take its biggest step toward becoming a reality. During a memorable evening at the Wang Center for the Performing Arts and the Tremont Boston Hotel last September, more than 250 friends and trustees of the Institute gathered to help establish the Leonard P. Zakim Center for Integrative Therapies by raising $500,000. The evening was conceived and spearheaded by Kay Kilpatrick, a longtime supporter of Zakim and chair of the "Friends of Lenny" committee.
The center will offer massage therapy, acupuncture, nutritional guidance, and other complementary services aimed at helping patients cope with the side effects of their cancer treatments and gain a sense of control over their diseases. The center has been the focus of the Institute's Complementary Therapies Task Force, formed in 1997, which comprises patients, physicians, nurses, social workers, nutritionists, Institute trustees, and care providers from Dana-Farber, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Children's Hospital, and other institutions. For more information on the center, contact Anne Doherty at (617) 632-3810.
September's fundraising event for the center was highlighted by a speech from Zakim, a Dana-Farber patient for four years, who delivered an impassioned message.
"This gives us at least a sense that we're not just going to lie there and wait for something to happen to us," he told a hushed crowd. "Whether we use complementary therapies during or after treatment, there will now be a place at Dana-Farber where we as patients can get the type of assistance necessary to help us through conventional therapy."
