3rd year Student Selected Unit

Aims and Objectives for the Familiarisation Course on Complementary Medicine

  • To have examined (constructively and critically) the merits and claims of different complementary medicines (CAM) so that you will be able to begin 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.

Context of Teaching

We will be using a combination of short lecture presentations based on a variety of CAM therapies, small group discussions, and practical demonstrations where possible. The group will be mixed with students training at the Anglo European Chiropractic College. There has been a significant growth of interest in CAM and as such it represents and reflects several trends at work in medicine generally. This includes the influence of fashion, patient-centred care, individual choice, tensions and harmonies between different models, beliefs and philosophies of health.  We seek to tease out these issues and explore them through a reflective process during the sessions. Throughout the unit you will be encouraged to formulate your own views and share them in group discussion.  We are interested in not only providing you with factual based knowledge and practical experience (where possible) of the main CAM therapies, but our aim is also to encourage you to consider different attitudes towards this field of medicine including your own.

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 illustrative cases.  The teaching takes place at 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 Sarah Brien - Course Co-ordinator and Senior Research Fellow, David Owen - Homeopathic Physician,  George Lewith - Reader and Consultant Physician, Susan Woodhead - Acupuncturist, Elaine Cooke - Chiropractor, Thomas Conba - Osteopath, Phine Dahle - Psychotherapist, Keith Carr – Reiki, Richard Dreaper – Hypnosis, Dedj Leibbrandt – Herbalist, Caroline Eyles – Homeopathic Physician, David Nicolson – Nutrition and Norma Waite – Acupuncturist and GP.

> Further details of teaching team.

Course Outline

Session 1 :Overview of Cam including history, placebo effect and research.
Session 2 :Acupuncture
Session 3 :Hypnosis
Session 4 :Homeopathy
Session 5 :Bio-mechanical approaches (eg Osteopathy, Chiropractor, Alexander Technique)
Session 6 :Visit the Anglo-European Chiropractic College
Session 7 :Herbalism
Session 8 :Reiki
Session 9 :Nutrition
Session 10:Unit assessment and evaluation

Assessment

Students will assess their own attitudes and beliefs to CAM using the CAMBI questionnaire and there will be a short quiz and facilitated discussion of management issues in different clinical scenarios.

Sarah Brien ( sbb@soton.ac.uk ) who co-ordinates the unit is happy to talk to you if you require further information.