Originally inspired by the Pluralism Project developed by Diana L. Eck at Harvard University to study and document the growing religious diversity of the United States, the Boston Healing Landscape
Project, located in the Department of Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine, represents
a complementary sister initiative to examine how, over the past thirty years, the medical landscape of the U.S. has changed in corresponding ways. This richly textured world of healing represents the new face of culturally and religiously grounded complementary and alternative medicine in America. It confronts the medical community with the challenge of shaping a positive response to the multiple approaches to healing being pursued by patients and their families.
We at the Boston Healing Landscape Project are pleased to announce our new Islam and Health section, developed by Dr. Lance Laird. This section was developed for healthcare providers, to address the specific needs and backgrounds of different Muslim communities. It includes a general background and guide, bibliography, references, and links to more in-depth and helpful information.
The Boston Healing Landscape Project provides resources about minority and immigrant religious and cultural traditions in order to educate the local medical community on how alternate beliefs might affect treatment strategies.
The Boston Healing Landscape Project Internship Program offers opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to study the cultural, religious, and medical diversity of Boston.
The increasingly diverse US population, the growing use of medicinal herbs, and the necessity for training in cultural competence have created a need for related educational opportunities for health care professionals. To address these concerns, the Boston Healing Landscape Project (BHLP), the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, and the Treadwell Library of the Massachusetts General Hospital, offered a postgraduate education program, “Cultural Use of Herbs in Latino and Haitian Communities—Herbal Tour.”
BHLP training programs and resources: encouraging doctors to think about different culturally and religiously defined approaches to healing, and clarifying anthropological issues that are part of clinical practice.
Traditional healers in Boston have been finding acceptance where they least expected it: among doctors and scholars at one of the city's finest teaching hospitals.
The article outlines
the success of the BHLP-affiliated
"Cultural Uses of
Herbs in Latino and Hatian
Communities" CME
class. Additional information
on the course is available here.
