Indeed, Pasachoff recalled walking down Broadway in New York City and seeing a large picture of Weil in the display window at Barnes & Noble.

Hertzberg has a similarly memory, “I remember walking around Whole Foods in Santa Fe with Andy…ten years ago… [it was] like going to a rock concert with Mick Jagger. People kept coming up to him and telling him how much he changed their lives for the better.”

Despite reservations about the societal power of celebrity, Weil said the proliferation of the practice of integrative medicine satisfies his wish to start a movement in healthcare.

“I have mixed feelings about [it], but believe I’ve been able to leverage my celebrity to change medicine and medical education…the field of integrative medicine that I founded is becoming mainstream and will shape the future of medicine and healthcare,” Weil explained. “This is what I am supposed to be doing.”

In the career he has established for himself, Weil draws upon a variety of skills beyond medicine.

Hertzberg described him as a writer, a journalist, a reporter, a public speaker whose talks are filled with humor, and a wildly successful businessman. But most of all, “a lot of people have benefitted from what he has done,” Hertzberg said.

—Staff writer Joanna R. Schacter can be reached at joanna.schacter@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @JoannaSchacter.