When a cancer patient sits in an infusion chair at Memorial Sloan Kettering, chemotherapy is not the only thing happening. A few floors away, or sometimes right at the bedside. a practitioner might be placing hands gently on or above the patient’s body, offering something that has nothing to do with killing cancer cells. The purpose is different. Reiki is not treating the disease. It is addressing what the disease and its treatment do to the person living through it.
New York City’s major cancer centers have been integrating Reiki into their supportive care programs for years. Not as a fringe experiment. Not as a token gesture toward “holistic” branding. As a structured component of evidence-based integrative medicine, delivered by credentialed professionals, and in some cases studied through their own research programs.
This is what that looks like in practice.
How NYC’s Major Cancer Centers Structure Their Reiki Programs
Three hospital systems dominate cancer care in New York City, and all three include Reiki within their integrative medicine offerings. Each approaches it somewhat differently.
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center operates one of the oldest and most established integrative medicine programs in American oncology. Their Integrative Medicine and Wellness Service, active since 1999, provides touch therapies alongside acupuncture, massage, yoga, and creative arts therapies. The Bendheim Integrative Medicine Center. currently located at their 64th Street Outpatient Center on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. offers these services to MSK patients and the broader community. MSK’s integrative team includes Reiki-trained practitioners who work with cancer patients experiencing pain, neuropathy, fatigue, insomnia, stress, and anxiety. According to Rocco Caputo, a touch therapist at MSK, when a patient arrives with anxiety or nausea, the team can use acupressure or Reiki as part of their response. MSK also teaches Reiki to caregivers through monthly sessions, recognizing that ongoing support extends beyond what happens inside the hospital.
NYU Langone Health integrates Reiki through multiple pathways. Their Mind-Body Patient Bedside Program at Tisch Hospital and Kimmel Pavilion provides Reiki sessions free of charge to inpatients. delivered by licensed healthcare professionals, not outside volunteers. NYU Langone describes Reiki on their program page as a noninvasive, hands-on technique that facilitates deep relaxation, with practitioners placing hands on or near the body in a series of positions. The Perlmutter Cancer Center at NYU Langone offers Reiki alongside massage, acupuncture, and lymphatic drainage through their integrative health services at 160 East 34th Street, available by appointment on a fee-for-service basis. NYU Langone’s Lerner Health Promotion Program has gone further, establishing Reiki certification courses. Levels 1, 2, and a specialized bridge-to-practice course. designed to integrate Reiki into professional nursing practice and self-care protocols. Several staff members hold Reiki Master certification alongside their clinical credentials.
Mount Sinai Health System includes Reiki within its Tisch Cancer Center’s support services, alongside yoga, acupuncture, massage, meditation, guided imagery, and creative arts therapies. The Hertzberg Palliative Care Institute at Mount Sinai provides massage, yoga, and Reiki to patients specifically in palliative care settings. Mount Sinai describes Reiki in its clinical materials as “a type of compassionate touch that promotes improved oxygen exchange.” Their integrative medicine services extend across multiple campuses. Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai-Union Square, the Blavatnik Family Chelsea Medical Center, and Mount Sinai West.
These are not pilot programs. They are established services operating within some of the most research-intensive cancer centers in the world.
Symptom Management, Not Treatment
Cancer treatment produces a cascade of side effects that medication alone does not always manage well. Chemotherapy causes nausea, fatigue, neuropathic pain, and cognitive fog. Radiation brings skin irritation, exhaustion, and anxiety about cumulative exposure. Surgery creates post-operative pain and immobility. And running beneath all of it: the psychological weight of the diagnosis itself.
Hospital-based Reiki programs target the symptom burden, not the cancer. That distinction matters enormously, and every program in NYC makes it explicit. This is supportive care. designed to help patients tolerate treatment, manage side effects, and maintain quality of life during what is often an extended and physically brutal process.
A 2024 study published in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management evaluated a Reiki volunteer program across two cancer infusion centers (Dyer et al., University Hospitals, Cleveland). Between March 2022 and February 2024, 392 Reiki sessions were provided to 268 patients receiving infusion treatments such as chemotherapy. Sessions lasted 15 to 20 minutes. Patients completed the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System before and after each session.
The results showed clinically significant improvements across every measured symptom. Pain scores dropped by a mean of 1.78 points. Anxiety decreased by 2.09 points. Nausea, which had not been previously studied in this context. decreased by 2.30 points. Fatigue dropped by 1.33 points, and overall wellbeing improved by 1.37 points. All changes were statistically significant (p < .001). Roughly 83% of participants rated their Reiki session as helpful, and approximately 74% planned to continue using Reiki.
A separate 2023 systematic review examining Reiki’s effect on pain in cancer patients (Avci & Gün, Holistic Nursing Practice) analyzed seven studies encompassing 572 patients. Five of the seven studies found that Reiki reduced pain. Two did not. The reviewers concluded that limited evidence supports a positive effect but called for more rigorous randomized controlled trials.
A 2025 randomized controlled study (Oz Kahveci & Engin, published in Explore) found that Reiki was more effective than both sham Reiki and progressive relaxation exercises in reducing pain, anxiety, and stress levels in 58 cancer patients. with effects that persisted at three-month follow-up.
The pattern across these studies is consistent: short-term symptom relief, particularly for pain, anxiety, fatigue, and nausea. No study has demonstrated that Reiki treats cancer itself. No credible researcher claims it does.
What Happens During a Hospital Reiki Session
Hospital Reiki looks different from what you would experience at a private studio in Park Slope or the East Village.
Sessions are shorter. typically 15 to 30 minutes rather than the standard 60 to 90 minutes in private practice. The setting might be a dedicated integrative medicine room, but just as often it is the patient’s hospital bed or an infusion chair. There are IV lines, monitors, sometimes other patients nearby. The practitioner adapts.
Touch is modified for cancer patients. Areas with surgical sites, ports, tumors, or radiation burns are avoided or treated with hands-off, hovering techniques. Some patients cannot lie flat due to pain, breathing difficulty, or attached equipment. so sessions happen in whatever position the patient can manage.
The practitioners themselves differ from private-practice Reiki providers. At NYU Langone, bedside Reiki is delivered by licensed healthcare professionals. nurses and clinicians with additional Reiki training, not by outside practitioners. At MSK, touch therapists with specialized oncology training provide the service. This matters because they understand chemotherapy protocols, recognize symptoms of distress that require medical intervention, and can communicate observations back to the oncology team.
Patients do not need to believe in energy healing for the session to happen. Hospital programs frame Reiki in clinical language. relaxation response, parasympathetic activation, complementary therapy, and offer it as one option among several. The patient can say no, and many do. The ones who say yes often describe the same thing: a period of calm in the middle of a process that offers very little of it.
How to Access Reiki in NYC Cancer Centers
If you or someone you know is receiving cancer treatment at one of these hospitals, accessing Reiki typically works through one of these pathways:
At Memorial Sloan Kettering, integrative medicine services. including touch therapies. are available throughout the tristate area. The Bendheim Integrative Medicine Center is at 205 East 64th Street in Manhattan. Patients can call 646-449-1010 to schedule a visit. Physician referral can expedite access, and MSK also offers caregiver education programs including monthly Reiki instruction.
At NYU Langone, the Mind-Body Patient Bedside Program at Tisch Hospital and Kimmel Pavilion is available through a provider referral or by calling 212-263-5767. For Perlmutter Cancer Center’s fee-for-service integrative health options, call 212-731-5806. Sessions are available Monday through Friday. NYU Langone accepts cash, checks, credit cards, and FSA cards for applicable services, and can assist with documentation for insurance reimbursement where plans cover integrative therapies.
At Mount Sinai, cancer support services including Reiki are available at multiple locations across the health system. On-site social workers and oncology care teams can help connect patients to these services. Contact varies by campus. Mount Sinai Hospital can be reached at 212-241-7262, Mount Sinai West at 212-523-6920.
A few practical realities worth knowing. Most health insurance plans do not cover Reiki specifically, though some plans cover broader integrative medicine consultations that may include touch therapies. Inpatient bedside programs. like NYU Langone’s Mind-Body program. are often provided at no charge. Outpatient services at integrative medicine centers typically operate on a fee-for-service model. Always confirm coverage and costs before scheduling.
The Broader Landscape: Reiki in American Hospitals
NYC’s cancer centers are not unusual in offering Reiki. They are part of a broader national trend.
As of the most recent available data, more than 800 hospitals across the United States. roughly 15% of all hospitals. offer Reiki as part of patient services, according to the American Hospital Association. An IARP survey of top-ranked U.S. hospitals found that 60% had formal or informal Reiki programs, with 67% rating the therapy as “highly beneficial” for patients. The AHA reported that healing touch therapies (including Reiki and Therapeutic Touch) ranked as the third most requested complementary therapy by hospital patients, behind only massage therapy and music/art therapy.
These programs exist at institutions including Yale-New Haven, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Duke University Hospital, Columbia University Medical Center, and Cleveland Clinic, not exactly institutions known for embracing unproven therapies.
The reason hospitals adopt Reiki is pragmatic, not ideological. It requires no technology or equipment. It carries no known side effects. It can be delivered by trained volunteers at minimal cost. And patient satisfaction data consistently shows that people want it and report feeling better afterward. For hospital administrators balancing patient experience scores with tight budgets, Reiki offers a favorable cost-benefit profile.
What Reiki Does Not Do in Cancer Care
This section exists because honesty demands it, and because anyone searching for cancer support deserves clarity.
Reiki does not treat cancer. It does not shrink tumors, slow metastasis, improve survival rates, or replace any component of conventional oncologic treatment. surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, immunotherapy, or targeted therapy. No credible evidence supports any of these claims, and no hospital program in New York City makes them.
Reiki does not interact with medications. It does not interfere with chemotherapy protocols. It does not produce the kind of adverse effects that require monitoring. This is part of why hospitals can offer it relatively freely. the risk profile is essentially nil.
What Reiki appears to do, based on the available evidence, is provide short-term symptomatic relief for pain, anxiety, fatigue, and nausea during cancer treatment. It appears to activate the body’s relaxation response. Patients consistently report feeling calmer, more comfortable, and better able to cope.
Whether these effects exceed what a placebo response would produce remains an open scientific question. The McManus (2017) analysis found that of 13 methodologically adequate studies, eight demonstrated Reiki to be more effective than placebo, but the debate continues in academic literature. For patients sitting in an infusion chair, the mechanism may matter less than the experience: 20 minutes of feeling less anxious during chemotherapy has value regardless of how it is produced.
A Note on Advocacy and Realism
If you are a cancer patient or caregiver reading this, you have probably encountered two kinds of content about Reiki. One side claims Reiki can heal everything. The other dismisses it as pseudoscience. Neither serves you.
The reality at NYC’s cancer centers sits between those extremes. Major hospitals with billion-dollar research budgets have evaluated Reiki, found it safe and potentially helpful for symptom management, and integrated it into their care offerings. They have not found it to be a cancer treatment. Both of these things are true at the same time.
If you are currently receiving cancer treatment in New York City and are interested in Reiki, ask your oncology team. They can connect you with the integrative medicine services at your institution. You do not have to choose between evidence-based treatment and supportive care. That is the whole point of integrative medicine. you get both.
This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Reiki is a complementary therapy and should not replace conventional cancer treatment. Always consult your oncology team before adding any complementary therapy to your care plan.
Sources:
- Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Integrative Medicine and Wellness Service. mskcc.org
- Memorial Sloan Kettering. Bendheim Integrative Medicine Center. mskcc.org
- NYU Langone Health. Mind-Body Patient Bedside Program. nyulangone.org
- NYU Langone Health. Integrative Health Services at Perlmutter Cancer Center. nyulangone.org
- NYU Langone. Lerner Health Promotion Program. Reiki. med.nyu.edu
- Mount Sinai Health System. Tisch Cancer Center Support Services. mountsinai.org
- Mount Sinai. Hertzberg Palliative Care Institute. Massage & Yoga Therapy. mountsinai.org
- Dyer NL, Rodgers-Melnick SN, Fink KE, et al. “Evaluation of a Reiki Volunteer Program within Two Cancer Infusion Centers.” Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 2025;69(3):e211-e219.
- Avci A, Gün M. “The Effect of Reiki on Pain Applied to Patients With Cancer: A Systematic Review.” Holistic Nursing Practice, 2023;37(5):268-276.
- Oz Kahveci S, Engin E. “The Effect of Reiki Applied to Cancer Patients on Pain, Anxiety, and Stress Levels: A Randomized Controlled Study.” Explore, 2025.
- McManus DE. “Reiki Is Better Than Placebo and Has Broad Potential as a Complementary Health Therapy.” Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary & Alternative Medicine, 2017;22(4):1051-1057.
- International Association of Reiki Professionals (IARP). Hospital Survey on Reiki. iarp.org
- American Hospital Association. Complementary and Alternative Medicine Survey of Hospitals, 2010.