Dr. Lou Sportelli Receives Spirit of the Center Award

In April 2022, Dr. Lou Sportelli, a renowned chiropractor for more than five decades and director of the NCMIC Foundation, received the Spirit of the Center Award from the Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing. This award is only the fourth given in the history of the Center, and recognizes the embodiment of the values courage, curiosity, compassion, tenacity, and vision.

Dr. Mary Jo Kreitzer, founder and director of the Center, broached the idea to the team to nominate Sportelli, in recognition of his support of the Center and his multidecade, multi-hyphenate, storied career. It was a unanimous yes from the team, not least because through his directorship with the NCMIC Foundation, he helped support the inception of the Integrative Health & Wellbeing Research Program at the Center in 2014.  “We wouldn’t be here at the University of Minnesota without their support,” says Dr. Roni Evans, research associate professor and director of the Integrative Health & Wellbeing Research Program. “They provided a critical platform for studying complementary and integrative approaches, including chiropractic for pain management and wellbeing. Since 2014, our team has grown from 3 members to nearly 20, and we have secured more than $20 million in NIH research funding.” 

Not only has that been a win for the Center, this influence and support has created a ripple effect for chiropractic clients as this knowledge and training is passed along to students and helps legitimize the field. Dr. Sportelli authored a textbook, now in its thirteenth edition. According to Evans and many others, his evidence-based, scientific approach has helped breach the gap between western medicine schools of thought and “complementary” ones, bringing together the cream of the crop at major land-grant universities, as well as other schools. 

“The chiropractic profession has a long history of being cast aside and marginalized by other health professions, which has been a detriment to patients who could benefit from their care,” says Evans. “With a focus on non-drug approaches to managing pain and supporting healthy lifestyle behaviors, chiropractors play a pivotal role in addressing our country’s pain management and opioid crises, and helping people regain function and live well. For much of his career, Dr. Sportelli has been a tireless advocate for patients, chiropractic, interprofessional collaboration and research; NCMIC Foundation’s support of the Integrative Health & Wellbeing Research Program is a shining example of his leadership and vision.” His caring and fact-based approach has also exerted influence at the National Institutes of Health, Veterans Administration, and many other “first-of-kind research” initiatives across the country.  

Sportelli, who has been a doctor of chiropractic since 1962, says that he was “totally blown away” when he was called and told he’d be the recipient of this year’s Spirit of the Center award, but he has always found a kinship with the Center since its inception. “I was intrigued,” he says of hearing of the Center. “As a doctor of chiropractic, the way the Center approaches wellbeing is how we view the world and the health care. In health care, we’ve become so mechanistic—we’ve tried to separate mind, body, and spirituality, and it just doesn’t work that way. Wellness and healing and all of that are integrated. I was fascinated by the fact they are moving from kind of a mechanistic world to an integrated one.” 

Kreitzer calls him a true national treasure. “He’s deeply devoted to interdisciplinary work,” she says, and has moved his discipline forward through many lenses: education, research, clinical work, and policy in integrative health and medicine. “when he had the opportunity to support the Center, he was all in.” 

In a Zoom ceremony celebrating this honor, Evans said, addressing Sportelli: “With your tireless persistence, generous heart, and a dash of audacity now and then, you have helped transform the health care landscape for the better and inspired others do the same.” 

By empowering and sustaining integrative health researchers at the University and elsewhere, his pursuit of alleviating pain and caring for patients will leave a lasting legacy. In fact, his mentees are now acting as mentors to others, and he is now in the audience at conferences where his mentees are presenting. 

Sportelli says the Center is a leader with vision, too: “The University really is on the cutting edge of a paradigm shift,” he says. “We’re starting now to see an awakening. I think there is a … realization that what we’re doing just isn’t working. Dr. Kreitzer has been pounding this message for 28 years—and, all of a sudden, you kind of reach that tipping point. This is no longer thought of as foo-foo or strange …this is the fundamental basis for how we’re going to achieve wellbeing. It’s going to be through mindfulness, spirituality, and restoration of the way in which we think.”