Evaluating CAM Education in Health Professions Programs

As medical, nursing, and allied health programs integrate complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) content into existing curricula, they face many of the same challenges to assessment and evaluation as do more traditional aspects of health professions education, namely, (1) specifying measurable objectives, (2) identifying valid indicators, and (3) evaluating the attainment of desired outcomes. Based on the experiences of 14 National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) education grant recipients funded between 2000 and 2003, the authors cite selected examples to illustrate strengths and deficits to "mainstreaming" CAM content into established health professions curricula, including subjecting it to rigorous, systematic evaluation. In addition to offering recommendations for more strenuously evaluating key CAM-related educational outcomes, the authors discuss related attitudes, knowledge, and skills and how these, like other aspects of health professions training, may result in enhanced patient care through modifications in clinical (provider) behaviors.