3rd year Student Selected Unit

Complementary & Alternative Medicine; a learning experience (Blocks 1 & 2)
Complementary & Alternative Medicine; coping with stress (Block 3)

Experience and Observe

  • Visit the Anglo European College of Chiropractic and sit in on consultations
  • Experience Hypnosis, Reiki treatment, Nutrition advice and food tasting, Aromatherapy, Psychology exercises
  • Discuss and explore your beliefs in a multidisciplinary group with chiropractic students

For Block 3 only
We will tailor the therapies on offer in block 3 towards coping with stress to help during the busy exam period.

Aims and Objectives

Overall: To have examined (constructively and critically) the merits and claims of different complementary medicines (CAM) so that you will begin to be able to assess and advise patients who enquire about, or who might benefit from complementary medicine.  

  • To be able to state the basic principles and evidence of the main complementary medicines practiced in the UK.
  •  To describe the context in which it is practised in the community and how to obtain more information on it, including key points on training and regulation.
  • To examine your own attitudes towards complementary medicine and reflect on the variety of attitudes that exist among patients, healthcare practitioners and providers, for example, considering the role patients play in healing themselves.
  • To have some exposure to practical applications of CAM therapies e.g. visit to the Chiropractic College and practical session in the class.

Teaching Team

The teaching team are practitioners and teachers in complementary medicine, some of whom are also conventionally trained doctors.  We use a mixture of formal presentations, discussions, key topics and use a single illustrated case study to see how different CAM therapies would approach a clinical case.  The teaching takes place at the Aldermoor Health Centre.  We have found in the past that the multi-disciplinary group allows for interesting discussions with different view points that reflect many of the views that are likely to meet you in practice. 
The teaching team includes:

  • David Owen – Principal Clinical Teaching Fellow SoM, Holistic Physician
  • George Lewith – Professor of Health Research and Consultant Physician
  • Caroline Eyles – Homeopathic Physician
  • Susan Woodhead – Acupuncturist
  • Elaine Cooke – Chiropractic Practitioner
  • Phine Dahle – Psychotherapist
  • Keith Carr – Reiki Master
  • Christine Rose – Homeopath and GP
  • David Nicolson – Nutritionalist
  • Shelley Baker – Aromatherapist
  • Cheryl Dunford – Hypnotherapist
  • Dedj Leibbrandt – Herbalist

    >> Further details of teaching team.

Context of Teaching

Session 1 :Overview of Cam including history, placebo effect and research.
Session 2 :Acupuncture
Session 3 :Homeopathy
Session 4 :Psychotherapy
Session 5 :Osteopathy/Chiropractor
Session 6 :Nutrition
Session 7 :Reiki
Session 8 :Visit the Anglo-European Chiropractic College
Session 9 :Herbalism
Session 10Reflection of the course and case scenarios and evaluations

Assessment

There will not be a formal assessment for this unit, but students will have a discussion on management issues in different clinical scenarios during the final session to see how conventional and alternative medicine would deal with these.

Handouts to complement the module will be distributed at the various sessions, feedback from previous years and further handouts are available to download from our website or can be obtained from:

Jane Cousins,
Complementary Medicine Research,
Aldermoor Health Centre,
Aldermoor Close,
Southampton, SO16 5ST.
Telephone: 023 80241073. 
Fax: 023 80701125
Email: jc2@soton.ac.uk