An interesting article -- hope Weil makes some headway on this. Love, Joicy
Author Urges U.S. to Help Medical Schools
Develop Alternative-Medicine Programs
By JEFFREY BRAINARD
Washington
Andrew Weil, the best-selling author and advocate
for alternative
medicine, asked a U.S. Senate appropriations
subcommittee on
Tuesday to provide federal funds to help American
medical
schools work the subject into their curricula. He
made his pitch at
a hearing at which advocates for alternative
methods of treatment
and prevention urged more federal support for the
approach across
the board.
Dr. Weil, who directs the Program in Integrative
Medicine at the
University of Arizona, said that medical schools
must teach
alternative medicine if the medical establishment
is to embrace the
concept. Medical schools themselves are not
providing the
necessary financing for curricula development.
Federal support for alternative medicine has
grown in recent years,
but not nearly as fast as public interest in such
treatments. Many
scientists, however, have remained skeptical.
Dr. Weil got a warm welcome at the hearing from
two key
senators. The subcommittee's chairman, Arlen
Specter,
Republican of Pennsylvania, and its ranking
Democrat, Tom
Harkin of Iowa, have supported federal financing
for the National
Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine
at the
National Institutes of Health.
Neither senator specifically discussed Dr. Weil's
proposal about
curricula development. But both were supportive of
the center's
backing for controlled, scientific studies of
alternative medicine.
For example, the center has financed studies of
whether herbs and
meditation can effectively ease conditions such as
depression and
hypertension.
Mr. Harkin advocated expanding federal spending
for such
research, noting that the center now receives less
than half of 1
percent of the N.I.H.'s budget. President Clinton
has proposed a
budget for the center of $71.3-million in the 2001
fiscal year, up
4.9 percent over this year.
Dr. Weil, however, said the findings from such
research would
continue to be underused unless doctors, nurses,
and other
health-care providers were trained about
alternative therapies.
He said that most doctors, as well as
researchers, need the
training, because at least half of all American
patients have sought
some form of alternative medicine. However, few
medical schools
provide adequate education, especially about
proper nutrition, he
said. "There is a widening gulf between what
patients expect from
doctors and what they're getting," Dr. Weil said,
"and it seems to
me that the fundamental problem is medical
education. The way
we are training doctors today is not meeting the
needs of the
public."
Stephen E. Straus, director of the N.I.H.'s
alternative-medicine
center, said after the hearing that because the
agency's mission is
focused on research, the center does not typically
finance
education projects unless they include a research
component.
However, Dr. Straus added that the N.I.H. center
would provide
$1.5-million in grants to young scientists to
encourage them to
pursue research careers in alternative medicine.
In addition, the
center will provide $750,000 in grants to develop
medical-school
curricula to train scientists to perform research
in alternative
medicine.
Other efforts are under way to incorporate
alternative medicine into
medical education. The Association of American
Medical Colleges
has formed a committee to develop a standard
curriculum on the
subject. And this month, President Clinton
established a
Commission on Complementary and Alternative
Medicine Policy.
The group, which was authorized by Congress in
1998, will
discuss how to promote research and training in
alternative
medicine.
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