EDCAM Multicenter Curriculum Project

With its panel of experts and consultants, AMSA is implementing a pilot CAM curriculum adapted by six different medical schools over a four-year period. The curriculum is a compendium of needs, requests, and demands for education compiled from a dozen national initiatives for curriculum, as well as recommendations from evidence-based educators.

AMSA has provided guidelines and objectives for coursework in several areas of CAM and resources for existing courses at other medical schools. Using recommendations of the NIH National Conference on Medical and Nursing Education in Complementary Medicine in 1996, the Society for Teachers of Family Medicine, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Homeopathic Physicians Teachers Group, the Consortium of Academic Medical Centers, the American Board of Holistic Medicine, the Humanistic Medicine section of AMSA, and the White House Commission on CAM Policy, the following 6 courses (A-F) in 10 core areas (1-10) are recommended as part of the curriculum:

A. Stress Reduction, Relaxation and Wholeness: A didactic and experiential workshop

B. Introduction to Evidence-Based Complementary & Alternative Medicine

C. Core Curriculum CAM Integration in 10 categories:

1. Nutrition and Lifestyle: diet, exercise, sleep, and stress management

2. Mind-Body Medicine

3. Alternative systems of Medical Thought: Traditional Chinese Medicine

4. Alternative systems of Medical Thought: Yoga and Ayurveda

5. Alternative systems of Medical Thought: Homeopathy

6. Bioenergetic Medicine

7. Pharmacologic/Biologically based: Herbal Medicine

8. Pharmacologic/Biologically based: nutrition, dietary supplements, and vitamins

9. Manipulative Therapies: Chiropractic, Osteopathic

10. Manipulative Therapies: Massage

D. CAM Clinical Interviewing:

1. CAM History Taking

2. Holistic Interviewing

3. Patient-Centered Interviewing

4. Cultural Competency Skills

E. Integrative Field Study:

1. Research in an established CAM research program

2. Case-based CAM Literature Search

3. Community Service Health Promotion/ Disease Prevention Project

4. CAM Mentorship

F. U.S. and International CAM Electives: clinical or exploratory

Using the standard request for proposals (RFP) process, AMSA invited schools to submit proposals demonstrating how the above courses would be integrated into their existing curriculum. Each proposal adapted AMSA's content-driven outlines for each of the above courses using guidelines for format, objectives, clinical relevance and applications, evidence based literature citations, and extensive resources.

The first year RFP was sent out November 2002 and the second year RFP was sent out November 2003. After proposals were received January 2003 for Cycle 1 and January 2004 for Cycle 2, a total of six schools were selected by the Advisory Committee as pilot sites for the EDCAM curriculum project. The three first-year grant recipients are University of Massachusetts Medical School, University of Connecticut Health Center and University of California, Irvine College of Medicine (Press Release). The three second-year and final grant recipients are The University of Health Sciences College of Osteopathic Medicine, the Center for Integrative Medicine at George Washington University and Louisiana State University (Press Release).

Awarded schools will devise and tailored planning for integrating CAM education in line with their own curriculum style using guidelines from AMSA's suggestions. $15,000 funding/yr will be provided to schools for up to four years as conditions are met and approved.

Following implementation of pilot curricula, AMSA will conduct regular process and outcome evaluation of each customized program, and will disseminate results to institutions interested in creating CAM programs through AMSA's already established Web site, listserve programs, national/regional conventions, monthly magazine, newsletters and other professional conferences and journals.

Write to Joan Hedgecock, EDCAM principal investigator, for more information (joan_h@amsa.org).