Preparing complementary and alternative practitioners to teach learners in conventional health professions

Area of Science:

• Integrative Medicine Education
• Health Professions Training
• Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM)

Background:

• Federal funding is increasing complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) educational programming in US health-professions schools.
• CAM practitioners are increasingly involved as instructors, necessitating effective teaching strategies.
• Ensuring consistent and appropriate content delivery in CAM education presents a challenge.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate a workshop series aimed at enhancing the teaching skills of CAM practitioners.
• To address key issues in CAM education, including its integration with conventional medicine.

Main Methods:

• A series of 4 workshops was developed and delivered to 9 CAM practitioners.
• Workshop content focused on the CAM-conventional medicine interface, understanding medical practice, teaching strategies, and information retrieval.
• Participants were part of an educational project at the University of North Carolina.

Main Results:

• The workshops successfully addressed critical aspects of CAM education for practitioners.
• Participants gained insights into teaching complementary medicine effectively within health professions settings.
• Skills in accessing relevant information from databases were enhanced.

Conclusions:

• The developed workshop series effectively enhanced the teaching capabilities of CAM practitioners.
• These programs are vital for promoting consistent and high-quality CAM education in health professions schools.
• Further development of such educational initiatives can improve the integration of CAM into mainstream healthcare training.