Feasibility and Effectiveness of an Online Program

In 2007, in collaboration with faculty from eight family medicine residencies around the country the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine launched the Integrative Medicine in Residency (IMR) program. The Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine defines integrative medicine as healing-oriented medicine that takes account of the whole person, including all aspects of lifestyle. It emphasizes the therapeutic relationship between practitioner and patient, is informed by evidence, and makes use of all appropriate therapies. The purpose of the IMR was to develop a high-quality, webbased curriculum in integrative medicine (IM) (including, but not limited to, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)) to facilitate the incorporation of training in IM as a routine part of family medicine residency education. A description of the IMR curriculum, development process and implementation have been previously published.1 This article presents the results of our 5-year pilot phase, the impact of the program on residents’ IM knowledge, and the experience of creating and evaluating an online multisite collaborative curriculum. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 40-45% of adults in the US use CAM.2 The Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommends that “health profession schools (eg, schools of medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and allied health) incorporate sufficient information about CAM into the standard curriculum at the undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate levels to enable licensed professionals to competently advise their patients about CAM.”3 The Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) endorsed the inclusion of CAM material in family medicine residency training in 1999. Published curriculum guidelines are available for medical school4 and residency education.5 A recent national