Originally published June 16 2005
University of Pennsylvania med school incorporates alternative medicine
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A Newsday.com story reported that the University of Pennsylvania medical school will work with the Tai Sophia Institute in Maryland to help educate future doctors on the alternative therapies that more than a third of Americans turn to, such as yoga and accupuncture.
Doctors at Penn are working with Tai Sophia Institute, an alternative medicine school in Maryland, on a program to teach medical students about herbal therapies, meditation and other approaches that are increasingly popular with the public but largely exist outside the realm of mainstream medicine.
"We're not going to turn great surgeons into acupuncturists or herbalists; that's not the idea," said Robert Duggan, co-founder of Tai Sophia.
"The goal is that Penn medical school graduates will be highly able to speak with patients about how to guide these things into their overall care."
More than a third of American adults have tried alternative therapies -- including yoga, meditation, herbs and the Atkins diet -- according to a 2002 government survey of 31,000 people, the largest study of its kind in the United States.
"More and more there's a willingness by conventional schools to recognize the CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) schools as having this expertise," Haramati said.
Georgetown students work with a massage therapy school, for example, and Tufts University students work with an acupuncture school, he said.
More than 95 of the nation's 125 medical schools require some kind of complementary and alternative medicine coursework, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
"If you had raised this 10 years ago everyone would have sneered at it," Fishman said.
One program, for example, will teach doctors about herbal medicines so they can better serve their patients who are already taking them.
The idea is to teach the cardiology staff how to develop personalized therapy plans -- including everything from meditation and massage to reflexology and aromatherapy -- to decrease patient stress, pain and anxiety.
For example, new brain imaging technology will allow researchers to physically explore how things like herbs, acupuncture, even prayer, can make people feel better.
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