One by one, Rasa Samovov pulled forth several large jars of herbs.
She took them from the plastic milk crate and plunked them down between the fortune cookies and half-eaten plates of spicy orange chicken.
Brewed together, the herbalist told the roomful of University of California, Irvine, medical students and faculty, they made suan zao ren tang–the strong tea most of them were drinking.
Good for menopausal symptoms and insomnia, she said.
Herbal therapy, acupuncture, the basic energy “qi”–these were some of the topics addressed in this most unusual medical school class–UCI’s first foray into alternative-medicine education.
The five-week elective course, an introduction to Oriental medicine, which attracted a quarter of UCI’s first-year medical students, reflects the growing trend for American medical schools to offer classes in complementary medical therapies such as acupuncture, chiropractic and homeopathy.
Students spent two hours a week hearing from community practitioners and faculty about the theory and traditions of Oriental medicine and its confluence with Western medicine.
Many of these therapies, such as acupuncture and chiropractic, are becoming more mainstream, with even managed-care companies covering their use.
Others, such as herbal and massage therapy, chelation and Ayurveda, are less accepted.
Two years ago, the Association of American Medical Colleges didn’t even ask its members if they offered courses in holistic medicine because so few did; now 90 of the nation’s 127 medical schools teach the topic, and the association has formed a special committee to encourage schools to expand their offerings and make such training mandatory.
“It’s a happening thing,” said Dr. John Graham-Pole, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Florida.
Graham-Pole heads the education committee of the American Holistic Medical Association, which is working to integrate more information about alternative medicine into medical school curriculums.
The trend is driven by the public’s demand for alternative therapies, coupled with increasing scientific evidence about their effectiveness.
A 1993 study in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that 1 in 3 Americans uses an alternative therapy, and 73 percent don’t tell their doctors about it.
That alarms physicians, who worry not only that the Western treatments and drugs they prescribe could interact with herbal remedies and therapies but that they are losing their patients’ trust.
“They can no longer take it at face value that the only therapy the patient is receiving is the therapy they’re prescribing,” said Dr. Alberto Manetta, UCI associate dean for educational
affairs.
That’s particularly true in Orange County, Calif., with its exploding Asian and Hispanic populations.
“With that comes the culture and demand for other disciplines,” said Robert Blanks, a UCI professor of anatomy and neurobiology who provided faculty support for the Oriental medicine course.
The course was the brainchild of two first-year medical students, Antonio Duran and Michael Amster.
Each has worked with alternative medicine–Duran in the jungles of Peru and Amster in Santa Cruz, Calif., where he attended botanical medicine school and worked for an acupuncturist.
Before their effort, UCI medical students received only a 1 1/2-hour seminar on the range of holistic therapies available.
“It left us unsatisfied because it touched on so much and left so little time for questions,” said first-year student Chris Mendoza, who took the Oriental medicine class.
It’s essential that doctors understand these approaches, Amster said, and appalling how few do. He figured the best time to get them was when they’re fresh–before they are “brainwashed” by the traditional medical school curriculum, he said.
But even the most skeptical physicians are becoming more accepting as more controlled scientific studies are published showing that therapies such as acupuncture and chiropractic are helpful in treating some conditions.
“Five years ago, it would have been unheard of for most doctors to prescribe vitamins,” Blank said.
Now, nutritional advice is an integral part of most physicians’ treatments.
