The Block Center History
Keith I. Block, M.D. and Penny Block, M.A., PhD, founded the Block Center for Integrative Cancer Treatment in 1980, with a focus on treating the patient as a whole person rather than simply treating the diagnosis. Together, they developed their unique and truly integrative approach to cancer treatment which encompasses traditional and complementary medicine delivered in a caring environment.
The Block Center’s skilled professionals, trained in the Block integrative philosophy, are all critical members of each patient’s treatment team.
During the early years of his medical training, Dr. Block was himself struck by illness in the form of bleeding ulcers and migraines. Being at the patient’s end of a stethoscope had an effect upon him that has lasted a lifetime. He experienced firsthand the difficulty and helplessness of being a patient who gained no lasting relief from then-conventional medical treatments. Eventually he sought out therapies and philosophies that took into account his whole person. Improving his own condition expanded his professional vision, producing a physician committed to the careful evaluation of all healing potentials.
Keith and Penny Block built a career on combining the most promising complementary methodologies with an innovative approach to conventional protocols. Using that basis as a foundation, the Blocks built a unique medical practice that served its patients by challenging accepted dogma and then refined existing nutritional, psychosocial and physiological strategies to the benefit of their patients. They redefined the health provider-patient relationship by engaging people in their own care.
During the nearly 30 years since the Block Center’s founding, thousands of people diagnosed with various of the hundreds of cancer types have benefited from the care and treatment provided by the Block Center. During that time, the center itself has achieved an internationally recognized scientific reputation for its cancer care specialty.
