BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Integrative medicine is a relatively new field that seeks to combine conventional and nonconventional approaches to patient care. Many academic health centers have now established integrative medicine clinics, yet little is known about the clinicians who practice at them. We used a nationwide survey to characterize the backgrounds, clinical practices, and involvement i...

According to Dr. Andrew Weil, Director of the Integrative Medicine program at the University of Arizona, “The integrative approach is based on a physician/patient partnership within which conventional and alternative modalities are used to stimulate the body’s natural healing potential. It neither rejects conventional medicine nor uncritically accepts alternative practices.” Physicians who use ...

The merits of integrative medicine such as traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) combined with Western medicine in preventing or ameliorating chronic diseases are increasingly in the biomedical research and clinical applications. Recent researches suggest that integrative medicine are not only the TCM plus Western medicine simply. They should be put together by scienti...

This article, the last in a 4-part series on philosophical problems in conventional and integrative medicine, focuses on problems related to deriving methodologies for identifying integrative assessment and treatment approaches. Methodologies used to verify claims made for a particular conventional or nonconventional approach can be regarded as empirically derived, consensus-based, or intuitive...

The growing popularity of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and integrative medicine (IM) highlight the need for a clinically relevant system for classifying health care practices. All systems, modalities, and techniques of health care (conventional, complementary, alternative, and traditional) can be organized in categories of "primary mode of therapeutic action." This results in si...

BACKGROUND An increasing number of clinics offer complementary or integrative medicine services; however, clear guidance about how complementary medicine could be successfully and efficiently integrated into conventional health care settings is still lacking. Combining conventional and complementary medicine into integrative medicine can be regarded as a kind of merger. In a merger, two or more...

Purpose Reflective abilities are seen as helpful in improving patient-centered care and personal professional development and are therefore advocated especially in integrative care education, since integrative medicine involves personalized care. The aim of our study is twofold: To present (1) a qualitative evaluation of clinical students on a newly developed clinical reflective practice (CRP) ...

BACKGROUND Today there is an agreement on how patients should be counseled regarding integrative medicine in oncology. In order to better meet the patients' demands, we investigated additional beliefs and wishes related to these topics. PATIENTS AND METHODS Patients in 2 locations were asked to complete an assessment form regarding their wishes in relation to counseling on integrative medicin...