Australasian Integrative Medicine Association Inc.'Integrating Complementary & Mainstream Medicine'

In 1992, Dr Vicki Kotsirilos became increasingly concerned by the lack of understanding about complementary therapies amongst the mainstream medical fraternity. This culminated with some public statements made by the RACGP and the AMA which suggested that doctors practicing complementary medicine(CM) in their practice should lose medicare rebates for their consultations.

 

Having successfully and openly integrated complementary therapies into her practice for several years, Vicki was unwilling to compromise her beliefs about health and healing and the deep conviction that CMs were helping her patients.

She felt threatened and isolated as a GP but also knew that there were like-minded doctors who had also trained in this area.

 

Several hundred phone calls later, Vicki convened a meeting of these doctors and the ‘Australian Integrative Medicine Association (AIMA)’ was born. The AIMA’s objective was to act as a peer support group of doctors that would communicate openly and respectfully with bodies such as the HIC, RACGP and AMA. It was also important to let other GPs know that there were GPs practicing integrative medicine with the same degree of ethics and accountability as they had in their mainstream practice.

 

Vicki became the Founding President and held this position for 7 years. She has continued to serve AIMA in a variety of capacities and is currently an Honorary Board member.