The C.A.M. Report
Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Fair, Balanced, and to the Point
  • About this web log

    This blog ran from 2006 to 2016 and was intended as an objective and dispassionate source of information on the latest CAM research. Since my background is in pharmacy and allopathic medicine, I view all CAM as advancing through the development pipeline to eventually become integrated into mainstream medical practice. Some will succeed while others fail. But all are treated fairly here.

  • About the author

    John Russo, Jr., PharmD, is president of The MedCom Resource, Inc. Previously, he was senior vice president of medical communications at www.Vicus.com, a complementary and alternative medicine website.

  • Common sense considerations

    The material on this weblog is for informational purposes. It is not medical advice or counsel. Be smart, consult your health professional before using CAM.

  • Recent Posts

  • Recent Comments

    Standardized patient histories improve CAM knowledge among medical students

    Researchers at the University of Kentucky, in Lexington conducted CAM workshops to study the value of standardized patients on knowledge and clinical skills of third-year medical students.

    First, the details.

    • 186 3rd year medical students participated in the program.
    • A 4-hour CAM workshop was developed as part of a 4-week primary care internal medicine clerkship.
    • The CAM workshop and 3 other workshops were randomly assigned to half of the students.
    • The CAM workshop used 4 standard patient cases representing different clinical challenges.
    • At the end of the program, all students took a 100-item written exam that included 7 CAM-specific questions and a written exercise.

    And, the results.

    • Workshop participants performed significantly better on the written exercise (77% vs 63%) and on the 7 CAM written exam items (85% vs 76%).

    The bottom line?

    In my experience case histories aid learning, and the Socratic method is superior to didactic learning.

    But what does this study teach us except that exposure of medical students to CAM results in better knowledge compared to students who get no exposure?

    1/4/10 23:34 JR

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