University of Colorado

Integrative Medicine Elective for Medical Students

The elective is a semester-long combination of didactic, experiential, and shadowing exposure to a wide variety of CAM practices. Students meet weekly for an hour for 18 weeks and also spend a half-day (or more if they like) shadowing CAM practitioners at the Center for Integrative Medicine. Though we’d love to have students from other institutions, it’s not practical at this point unless the student has other activities planned here to occupy the rest of the time!

Integrative Medicine Elective for Resident Physicians

The elective is 2 weeks of nutrition and 2 weeks of CAM. The CAM time is spent shadowing community CAM practitioners as well as shadowing CAM practitioners in The Center for Integrative Medicine here at the University of Colorado Hospital and Health Sciences Center. In addition, there are up to 2 didactic sessions on communicating with patients about CAM and on Western Herbs, and a syllabus, textbooks, videos, and online resources are used to enhance the learning experience. Residents are asked to complete a review project. For more details, please contact Lisa Corbin, MD, course director at lisa.corbin@uchsc.edu. For details on the nutrition portion, contact Laura Primak at laura.primak@uchsc.edu.

Integrative Medicine Training for Allied Health Practitioners (e.g. nursing, psychology, physical therapy)

Allied health practitioners from all of the Health Sciences Center schools (SOD, SON, SOP, CHA/PA, PT/OT) have lectures in their curricula about integrative medicine and are offered the chance to spend time at the Center for Integrative Medicine as they would like. They are also welcome to join in the medical student elective and are active members of the Complementary Alternative Integrative Medicine Student Interest Group. Our psychologists at TCFIM also precept/mentor psychology graduate students from the University. Given the nature of the AHP training, it’s not practical to sponsor students from other institutions, with the possible exception of psychology externships (3 months to 1 year). Please contact Lisa Corbin, MD, for more information (lisa.corbin@uchsc.edu).