Questiona about wellness program

WSU recently announced a “cutting edge scientific wellness program” for their new medical students (“WSU med to be first to use ‘scientific wellness’, April 12). However the foundation of medicine and medical education is based on evidence. WSU’s wellness program fails this requirement. It relies on a corporate approach, which is unproven, expensive, questionable ethically and financially out of the reach of the vast majority of patients.

The arrangement with Arivale raises a number of ethical and financial questions. They “charge” $3,500, but is WSU actually paying this amount, or is it subsidized by Arivale? Is this being paid with taxpayer dollars, or student tuition? The cost of a medical education is already obscenely high, (tuition is on the order of $35,000 a year), so why not use a traditional evidence based approach to teach wellness and lower the student’s tuition by $3,500?

If it is subsidized by Arivale, it is unethical. Medicine has worked to remove corporate influence from medical education and physician practice. Who owns the genetic information? Is this just expanding Arivale’s database? If Arivale wants to promote this approach, it should prove its effectiveness, then the approach can be used - based on evidence.

Tim Chestnut, MD

Spokane