Newsday. Long Island, N.Y.: May 15, 2005.
Their new careers off to healthy start

BY ANN GIVENS
STAFF WRITER

Anastasia Seelig had tried everything.

To cure the chronic neck pain she had after suffering whiplash three years ago, she took muscle relaxants and a range of other drugs.

Only when those didn't work did she resolve to try alternative medicine, she said. After only a few months of massage and acupuncture treatments, her pain was gone.

The experience made such an impression on Seelig, of Dix Hills, that she abandoned a profession selling real estate to go study alternative medicine at the New York College of Health Professions in Syosset.

Yesterday, she gave the commencement address to about 120 of her classmates before walking away with a master's of science degree in acupuncture. The school is the only college on Long Island dedicated to alternative and holistic medicine.

"When I became pain free, that was what inspired me," said Seelig, still dressed in cap and gown after the ceremony at the Melville Marriott Long Island.

The college, which was founded in 1981, awarded certificates, associate's, bachelor's and master's degrees and doctorates in everything from holistic nursing to oriental medicine. Graduates have gone on to work in spas, nursing homes, hospitals and private practice, among other places, college president Lisa Pamintuan said.

Commencement speaker Steven Salvatore, a medical correspondent for WNYW FOX Channel 5, said he got his doctorate in osteopathic medicine about 15 years ago. Back then, he said, there was a lot of skepticism about the legitimacy of alternative. Now, he said, people are finding out "5, 000 years of medicine works. What a shock!" he joked. "You guys are definitely on the right path," he said. "You have no idea how good it feels to say that because I've been on the other side."

The college's second commencement speaker, Cheryl Wills, a health reporter at NY1 agreed. She told of how her producers used to question her when she pitched stories on alternative medicine. "I would say, 'You don't understand, It's not turning back the clock, it's turning forward the clock,'" she said.

Now, she said, the field is being taken more seriously. "I don't want to call it alternative anymore," she said. "I want to call it medicine."