Robert B. Saper, MD

Robert A. Saper, MD, is a board-certified family medicine physician at Boston Medical Center (BMC) and a professor of family medicine at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. Dr. Saper is also Director of Integrative Medicine for the BMC Department of Family Medicine. Soon after arriving at BMC in 2004, Dr. Saper received a five year Academic Career Development Grant from the NIH National Center for Complementary Alternative Medicine. With this support, he published a pilot study of yoga for chronic low back pain in predominantly low income minorities recruited from federally qualified community health centers. In 2010, Dr. Saper was funded by the NIH to conduct a randomized controlled trial comparing the effectiveness and cost of yoga, physical therapy, and education for back pain. He is also funded by NIH to study yoga for back pain in veterans. Other major areas of research include the safety and efficacy of traditional Indian herbal medicines. Dr. Saper is the Past Chair of the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine and Health.