Preventive Medicine Training: The Case for Integrating Integrative Medicine.

Abstract

This special issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine is devoted to preventive medicine residency program curricular innovations in the area of integrative medicine, implemented in the context of a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) grant. Funds were awarded competitively to one coordinating center and a group of participating centers. The American College of Preventive Medicine (ACPM) received funding as the coordinating center and established the Integrative Medicine in Preventive Medicine Education program. A dozen preventive medicine residency programs were funded as participants. Project funds were made available through a Funding Opportunity Announcement by HRSA in 2012, inviting applicants to compete for the awards. The Announcement followed an extended period of discussion involving the ACPM, among others, about the need for just such an effort with both HRSA, and interested members of Congress, notably then Senator TomHarkin (D-Iowa). The case made was fairly straightforward. Preventive medicine residents are trained to prevent disease and promote health. Integrative medicine places a considerable emphasis on these same goals, on holistic models of care to facilitate them, and on lifestyle practices. The readership of this journal reliably requires no clarifying definition of preventive medicine. Integrative medicine may be rather less familiar, however. There are competing definitions in this area, and perennial dissatisfaction with the relevant nomenclature. Within the context of the project chronicled in this supplement, the operational definition of integrative medicine was informed by those of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly, IOM), the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine and Health (formerly, The Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine), and the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (formerly, the