Education
In the United States, increasing numbers of medical colleges have started offering courses in alternative and complementary medicine. A 1998 study reported "There is tremendous heterogeneity and diversity in content, format, and requirements among courses in complementary and alternative medicine at US medical schools". Common topics included chiropractic, acupuncture, homeopathy, herbal therapies, and mind-body techniques. In three separate research surveys that surveyed 729 schools (125 medical schools offering a Doctor of Medicine degree (M.D.), 25 medical schools offering a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree (D.O.), and 585 schools offering a nursing degree), 60% of the medical schools, 95% of osteopathic medical schools and 84.8% of the nursing schools teach some form of CAM. The University of Arizona College of Medicine offers a program in Integrative Medicine under the leadership of Andrew Weil that trains physicians in various branches of alternative medicine that "...neither rejects conventional medicine nor embraces alternative practices uncritically." The Florida Institute for Complementary and Alternative Medicine is the only state accredited school which can confer an Alternative Medicine degree. Accredited Naturopathic colleges and universities are also increasing in number and popularity in Canada and the USA. (See Naturopathic medical school in North America).
A 2001 survey of European universities found that unconventional medicine courses are widely represented at European universities. They cover a wide range of therapies and many of them are used clinically. Research work is underway at several faculties. A 2006 survey showed that 40% of the responding European universities were offering some form of CAM training."
Universities in the United Kingdom have been dropping their degree courses in alternative medicine, and as of 2012, no more degrees will be offered in such courses as homeopathy, naturopathy, and reflexology.
Read more about this topic: Alternative Medical Systems
Famous quotes containing the word education:
“Those things for which the most money is demanded are never the things which the student most wants. Tuition, for instance, is an important item in the term bill, while for the far more valuable education which he gets by associating with the most cultivated of his contemporaries no charge is made.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The legislator should direct his attention above all to the education of youth; for the neglect of education does harm to the constitution. The citizen should be molded to suit the form of government under which he lives. For each government has a peculiar character which originally formed and which continues to preserve it. The character of democracy creates democracy, and the character of oligarchy creates oligarchy.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)
“One of the benefits of a college education is, to show the boy its little avail.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)