Inclusion of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) teaching into pharmacy curricula – a cross- sectional survey of Australian and New Zealand Schools/Department of pharmacy

Introduction With the increased usage of CAM worldwide comes the demand for its integration into health professional education. As primary care providers pharmacists are at the forefront, providing information and guidance to patients about safe and effective use of all medicines, including complementary medicines. Surveys of Australian community pharmacists show that their CAM training does not meet their professional needs and that their lack of suitable training prevents information provision on CAM. Similarly, student surveys mostly show that graduates don’t feel comfortable with CAM counselling. Although most pharmacy Schools in Australia and New Zealand offer some form of CAM training, the extent to which CAM is taught and integrated varies widely due to the fact that its integration is not a unifying requirement and is handled quite differently at amongst institutions. This study evaluates the scope of CAM teaching in pharmacy programs in Australia and New Zealand’s Schools of Pharmacy.