Academic Medical Centers

Introducing holism and complementary medicine into mainstream medical education provides many scientific, philosophical, and personal challenges. The growth of new knowledge always necessitates venturing into areas, which are, by definition, unknown, hence arise potential clashes of ideology, knowledge, evidence, interpretation, language, and personality. This paper outlines some of the experience and progress made at Monash University Victoria, Australia, in teaching this material in undergraduate medical education.

For 10 years, our unit has intensively researched the efficacy and safety of acupuncture. This is a brief summary of our work in this area. Specifically, it deals with the development of a sham needle, with various systematic reviews and prospective studies in the area of safety, and with our clinical trials and systematic reviews on efficacy. We also hope in the future that we will be able to contribute to the understanding of acupuncture as a therapeutic modality.

A significant practical, yet perhaps under-appreciated, barrier to a more active role of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) institutions in research is the organizational infrastructure required for submitting and managing research grants.

Few complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) institutions require their students to undergo substantive training in research literacy and conduct, and well-developed programs to train CAM institution faculty in research are virtually non-existent.

OBJECTIVE: There is a growing need for students and practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine to gain experience with standardized data collection, patient outcomes measurement, and practice-based research. The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a process for standardized data collection that could eventually be adopted for clinical, research, and quality assurance purposes. SETTINGS/LOCATION: The setting for this study was an acupuncture and Oriental medicine teaching clinic in Bloomington, Minnesota.

For 10 years, our unit has intensively researched the efficacy and safety of acupuncture. This is a brief summary of our work in this area. Specifically, it deals with the development of a sham needle, with various systematic reviews and prospective studies in the area of safety, and with our clinical trials and systematic reviews on efficacy. We also hope in the future that we will be able to contribute to the understanding of acupuncture as a therapeutic modality.

A significant practical, yet perhaps under-appreciated, barrier to a more active role of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) institutions in research is the organizational infrastructure required for submitting and managing research grants.

OBJECTIVE: There is a growing need for students and practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine to gain experience with standardized data collection, patient outcomes measurement, and practice-based research. The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a process for standardized data collection that could eventually be adopted for clinical, research, and quality assurance purposes. SETTINGS/LOCATION: The setting for this study was an acupuncture and Oriental medicine teaching clinic in Bloomington, Minnesota.

PURPOSE: To assess day-to-day emotions and the experiences that trigger these emotions for medical trainees in hospital settings. The overarching goal was to illuminate training experiences that affect professional behaviors of physicians. METHOD: This qualitative study, conducted April-June 2000, used semistructured, open-ended interviews, observations by a non-participant, and a self-report task at two inpatient services (internal medicine and pediatrics) at different hospitals within a single academic institution in the northwestern United States.

BACKGROUND: Access Assured, an experimental program to deliver primary care to uninsured patients using a monthly retainer payment system, has been shown to provide a financially viable method of delivering primary care services to people without health insurance. This qualitative study was designed to assess patient attitudes and concerns about this program and to identify ways to improve it. METHODS: We conducted telephone interviews with 40 purposefully selected Access Assured members between May and June of 2009.