Introducing a Complementary and Alternative Medicine Curriculum at the University of Washington

Principal Investigator - Ron Schneeweiss, MBChB
NIH-NCCAM R25 grant #AT00813-06

A multidisciplinary group of faculty and staff from the University of Washington Schools of Medicine and Nursing collaborated with Bastyr University on a federally funded CAM Curriculum grant. The aim of this 5-year grant was to integrate CAM curriculum into each of the UW medical school's required courses throughout all four years of medical training. A one-year project extension is currently funding the sixth year of the project. With federal support becoming increasingly more difficult to obtain, CAM education at the UW is at a critical stage in funding.

UW CAM Grant Goals

• Prepare medical students to communicate more effectively with patients about their use of complementary and alternative therapies.
• Deepen medical students' knowledge about complementary and alternative medicine, especially herbals and supplements, and to advise patients on safety.
• Provide medical students with the knowledge and attitude to communicate effectively with complementary and alternative therapy providers.
  
  
  UW CAM Grant Specific Aims
  
  
  
• Promote a climate of cooperation, collegial relationships, and better understanding between 'conventional' and 'complementary' medicine faculty.
  
• Foster interdisciplinary student interactions and engage in a respectful exploration of the similarities and differences between conventional and CAM approaches to healing based on a common commitment to high-quality patient care.
• Develop and integrate an interdisciplinary evidence-based CAM curriculum in the existing required courses and establish new elective opportunities throughout the four-year medical school program at the UW-SOM.
• Design and implement faculty development in CAM for clinical faculty involved in teaching the required clinical clerkships and elective preceptorships throughout WWAMI (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho).
• Enhance existing information resources so that faculty, student clinicians, and other health professionals, region-wide will have integrated access to essential CAM databases and education resources at the point of care.