Dr. Rakel started his career near the Teton Mountains in Driggs, Idaho where he was in rural private practice for five years before completing a two-year residential fellowship in integrative medicine at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center. He was the founder and director of the University of Wisconsin Integrative Medicine Program and associate professor in the department on family medicine at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. He is now the Professor and Chair of the Department of Family & Community Medicine at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine in Albuquerque, NM.
Dr. Rakel is editor of the text, Integrative Medicine with the 4th edition in progress and he is co-editor of the Textbook of Family Medicine, 8th and 9th editions. He is editor-in-chief of Practiceupdate.com for Primary Care. He has received NIH funding to study the placebo effect and to incorporate healing modalities into medical school curricula. He has been awarded a number of teaching awards including the Baldwin E. Lloyd clinical teacher award, the UW Department of Family Medicine faculty excellence award, the Marc Hansen lecture award, the resident teacher-of-the-year award and the Leonard Tow award for compassionate care. He has also been accepted into the Gold Humanism Honor Society.
