University Communications

A UCLA health program bridges
the gulf between two cultures to provide a new model for health care

By Nancy Sokoler Steiner ’85
Illustration by Katherine Dunn

Melanie Burke always thought of herself as a healthy person. But several years ago, the 30-something social worker started experiencing a host of physical problems: She had trouble moving her shoulder; her muscles ached and tingled; she had migraine headaches and a racing heartbeat.

Burke ’87, M.S.W. ’91 sought out specialists for her ailments, visiting two endocrinologists, a cardiologist and a neurologist. After undergoing a frightening and expensive battery of tests, she wasn’t getting any better.

“It was terrifying. It was really affecting my life,” Burke says.

Remembering a physician she’d seen more than a decade before for back pain, Burke contacted Ka Kit Hui ’71, M.D. ’75 at the UCLA Center for East-West Medicine. “When I told Dr. Hui all that I’d been experiencing, he said, ‘I’ve seen this before.’ It was such a calming and validating thing to hear,” she says.

<next>