Our Integrative Medicine Physician Educators
Mary L. Hardy, MD, is the Medical Director for the Simms/Mann – UCLA Center for Integrative Oncology and is a member of the UCLA hematology-oncology staff as an Associate Physician Diplomate. She trained as an internist and Integrative Medicine physician with over two decades of experience in guiding patients who are seeking to combine the best practices of conventional and complementary medicine.
She was the Associate Director of the UCLA Center for Dietary Supplement Research in Botanicals and the founding Medical Director of the Cedars-Sinai Integrative Medicine Program. Her clinical practice focuses on integrating the best of western conventional medicine with appropriate complementary therapies for a wide variety of patients, including people with cancer. She has a special interest in botanical medicine and has trained with scientists and herbalists all over the world including China, Peru, the Amazon, Kenya and South Africa.
Her current research interests at UCLA focus in using modern scientific methods to validate traditional herbal knowledge as well as developing methods to document the effectiveness of complementary therapies. Dr. Hardy has been a speaker at our Insights Into Cancer Lectures since 2005 before joining the Center. Her empathic and caring approach is a welcome balance to her extensive knowledge and experience.
Karen Duvall, MD, MPH, is well known to the Center as a speaker at Insights Into Cancer on the topic of nutrition. She has a background in clinical nutrition with a variety of populations, but has had a special interest in patients with cancer as well as women at risk for developing breast cancer.
Dr. Duvall is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Associate Director of the Preventive Medicine Residency Program at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA where she trains residents in the field of preventive medicine. She is also involved in breast and prostate cancer prevention research and the associated debates on nutrition and supplements. Like Dr. Hardy, she is a compassionate and caring physician who understands the needs of the whole patient.