Teaching the therapeutic principles of medicinal plants in medical education

The global medical landscape is in constant movement and change; All events are oriented towards the search for diagnostic and therapeutic alternatives that improve people's health status. The integration of natural medicine has gained strength in recent years; However, it is in medical education where efforts should be made to incorporate it during premedical training. The objective of this research is to describe the elements and methodological resources that can be included in medical education to guarantee the integration of natural medicine based on knowledge of the active principles of medicinal plants. For this, a basic and descriptive research is carried out that offers as main results the presentation of the main advantages and challenges offered by the integration of natural medicine into daily medical practice. Elements related to the need and form of integration of natural medicine are addressed and how formative research, as a methodological teaching tool, can facilitate this step. It is concluded that formative research, based on its different modalities, constitutes a methodological resource that helps the integration of natural medicine based on the knowledge of the active principles of medicinal plants. Despite knowing the advantages of natural medicine, its integration into therapeutic schemes is still far away. There are challenges that can be solved, based on the advantages it offers to improve people's health status.