Dr. Victor S. Sierpina, MD, is Associate Professor of Family Medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston, Texas. He graduated from the University of Illinois Abraham Lincoln School of Medicine as a James Scholar and completed. Family Practice Residency at MacNeal Memorial Hospital in suburban Chicago. Since medical school he has blended holistic medicine, alternative therapies and primary care. His research on wellness promotion received national attention.

Dr. Sierpina is board certified by the American Board of Family Practice and the American Board of Holistic Medicine. He has practiced in a holistic health center, worked with a group specializing in home birth, and was medical director of a group practice and urgent care center in the Chicago area for several years.

His practice and his personal life have long included the study of tai chi, acupuncture, meditation, Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine, nutritional, herbal and mind-body therapies. Fulfilling a life dream, he practiced whole person medicine as "the Country Doc" in a federally designated "frontier" mountain county in Colorado for many years before joining the faculty of UTMB.

Dr. Sierpina was recently awarded a $1.5 million, five-year National Institutes of Health grant to develop an evidence-based medical school curriculum in alternative therapies, which will be national in scope and Internet-supported. He has written numerous articles in alternative medicine and has recently published a text book entitled, "Integrative Health Care: Complementary and Alternative Therapies for the Whole Person."