According to a 1998 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, more than 42 percent of Americans used a complementary or alternative medical (CAM) therapy in 1997.  In addition, Americans spent more than $27 billion on these therapies that year, exceeding out-of-pocket spending for all U.S. hospitalizations.  Yet, despite the dramatic increase in the public’s use of alternative therapies, less than 40 percent of those therapies used were disclosed to physicians (JAMA 280: 1569-1575, 1998). 

Many medical leaders have called for physicians to become more knowledgeable about alternative medicine and urge them to increase their understanding of the possible benefits, risks and limitations of these approaches so that they can advise their patients appropriately.  Others have stressed the need to incorporate the teaching of CAM into the curricula of medical schools and residency programs.

In July 2001, Georgetown University School of Medicine was awarded a five-year R25 education grant from the NIH to support a new educational initiative aimed at incorporating complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), in an evidence-based manner, into the medical school curriculum.  The purpose of the initiative is not to train practitioners of CAM, but rather to increase students’ knowledge of and awareness about advances in CAM so that they will understand the role of CAM in healthcare and be capable of discussing these issues with their patients.  Dr. Aviad Haramati, a physiologist, is principal investigator of the grant and is leading a group of educators, researchers and practitioners in this initiative at Georgetown.  The unique approach he is implementing is to introduce CAM material in the required basic science courses, applying scientific rigor to determining what should and should not be presented.  For example, a lecture on the “Anatomy of Acupuncture” has been incorporated into the course in Gross Anatomy, and a second lecture on “Mechanisms of Pain Relief by Acupuncture and Other CAM Approaches” has been included in the Neurosciences course as part of the unit on pain perception and its neural pathways.  Biofeedback is introduced in a didactic and experiential session in the Human Physiology course, and in the Human Endocrinology course, following the didactic presentation on the “Physiology of Stress,” there is an experiential component related to the relaxation response and stress-reduction techniques.

In this one-hour IAMSE Audio Seminar, Dr. Haramati will discuss the rationale for such a curricular initiative, with specific emphasis on the critical role of basic science.  Examples will be provided for how CAM can be seamlessly integrated into several required basic science courses, and, in the process, how several educational objectives can be achieved.

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