A survey of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) educational leaders has resulted in five recommendations on how CAM education can improve health-care delivery in the U.S.
The report explored "how a shift in medical education toward a focus of understanding what is needed for the creation of health (salutogenesis) can bring balance to a curriculum that is currently weighted in teaching about the creation of disease (pathogenesis)."
Those surveyed were educators at institutions awarded grants for incorporating CAM education into medical curricula
The five recommendations are:
1. Education on the importance of relationship-centered care
2. Understanding holism
3. The promotion of self-reflection and self-care
4. Collaboration with CAM providers to enhance communication
5. The need for faculty development in CAM.
"People seek relationships that will provide a 'participatory experience of empowerment and authenticity when illness threatens their
sense of intactness,'" the report noted. "Our present health-care system with long waiting times, brief impersonal visits, and lack of continuity is not meeting this need. Many CAM practitioners are more effective in this regard, and the conventional U.S. health care system can improve by engaging in active dialogue and collaboration with them.
"The health-care team that is utilized to stimulate healing may be very different from the one used to diagnose and treat disease," the report continued. "A salutogenic approach requires the services of those skilled in areas such as counseling, manipulation [which, the report noted, including massage therapists], energetics, nutrition, and spiritual connection.
The report was originally published in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, Vol. 14, Num. 1, 2008, and was subsequently made available to MASSAGE Magazine by lead author David P. Rakel.