David Rakel MD, FAAFP
Professor and Chair, Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, WisconsinDr. David Rakel is Professor and Chair of the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Wisconsin. During his time at UW–Madison, he founded the Integrative Medicine Program (now known as the Integrative Health Program) and received the Gold Foundation’s Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award, the school’s highest honor for excellence and compassion in care. His team worked with more than 50 clinical systems within the Veterans Health Administration to implement changes to make care more personalized, proactive, and patient-driven.
After residency training in family medicine in Colorado, Dr. Rakel worked in private practice in rural Idaho. His burgeoning interest in the relationships across health, the human experience, and the environment led to a fellowship in integrative medicine at the University of Arizona.
An author of both academic and popular writings, Dr. Rakel says one of his missions is to communicate medical information in a way that is accessible to people of all backgrounds.
Recent Contributions to PracticeUpdate:
- Diet as a Trigger or Therapy for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases
- The Global Increase of Inflammatory Bowel Disease
- Technology-Based Risk Assessment Tools Facilitate Shared Decision-Making, and the Art of Medicine Holds Its Own
- Placebo Treatment Effective in Chronic Low Back Pain
- Using PSA Levels of 1.5 ng/mL as the Cutoff for Prostate Cancer Screening
- Low FODMaP Diet Compared With mNICE Guidelines for IBS-D
- Absence of Peripheral Pulses Predict Major Vascular Outcomes in Diabetes
- Review of Measles and Measles Vaccination
- Glycemic Control Not Improved and Rates of Severe Hypoglycemia Unchanged, 2006–2013
- Increased Incidence of Acute Pancreatitis in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Treated With Gliptins