Our Members: Rick Smith

Rick Smith is new to the Bay Area and studies community development, social change and poverty at the School of Social Welfare. For Smith, integrative medicine is more than just an intervention from expert to patient, but forming communities that promote healthy living. His mother managed a laboratory at an Osteopathic clinic, where he learned the benefits of good diet, exercise, deep heat treatments and low velocity spinal manipulations. In the Peace Corps, he worked on the vast steppes of Outer Mongolia training English teachers and got to experience moxibustion, herbal remedies and the healing power of horse milk. In Washington, DC he worked with state and local governments with their strategic plans to renew communities and promote living and working near home. He practices yoga daily and is a reiki master in the Usui tradition. Before coming to Cal, he was a registered Reiki volunteer at the George Washington University Hospital with Reikipartners.org. He loves cooking organic, vegan and at times raw feasts, biodynamic wine and nature in moderation.