Familiarity with Complementary and Alternative Medicine: A Multimodal Curriculum in Medical Education

Purpose: To identify whether exposing medical students to a multimodal curriculum of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) practices improves their understanding of CAM clinical applications. Background: A significant portion of the U.S. population uses CAM: 34% of adults and 12% of children. Integrative medicine combines the best of conventional and CAM practices. Despite the increased clinical acceptance of CAM, medical education has been lagging, leaving gaps in learners' knowledge. It is important for medical education to keep pace with these developments by educating students and expanding the view of interprofessional care. Methods: A total of 101 first-year medical students at the University of Connecticut participated in a multimodal CAM curriculum. This included (1) an hour lecture, (2) an online research assignment for a continuity patient, and (3) 2 of 4 modules: acupuncture, hypnotherapy, Reiki, or pet therapy. Pre- and post-tests were administered 1 week apart to assess familiarity with CAM practices and the perceived safety and efficacy of each modality. The familiarity was rated on a scale of 0 (not familiar) to 10 (very familiar). Paired Student's t-tests assessed changes from pre- to post-tests at significant levels (p < 0.01). Results: Overall, the mean percentage of students who were able to identify 1 of the top 8 CAM modalities increased from 38% to 49%. The average familiarity rating of CAM significantly increased from 4.7 pretest to 6.6 post-test (p < 0.01). The top 8 CAM modalities, as selected by students, included acupuncture, meditation, yoga, massage, Reiki, chiropractic, hypnosis, and pet therapy. Overall, the familiarity ratings increased for both safety and effectiveness with intermodule variability from pre- and post-test (p < 0.01). Larger increases in effectiveness familiarity were found than of safety familiarity (p < 0.01). Conclusions: This multimodal curriculum significantly improved medical students' familiarity with CAM modalities and the perceived safety and effectiveness of the modalities.