Advocacy and non-critical assessment are the approaches currently taken by most U.S. medical schools in their courses covering what is commonly called complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). CAM therapies are anomalous practices for which claims of efficacy are either unproved or disproved. The author's research indicates that most medical schools do not present CAM material in a form that encourages critiques and analyses of these claims. He presents the reasons for the unwarranted acceptance of CAM. These include the CAM movement's attempt to alter standards of evaluating therapies. A survey of CAM curricula in U.S. medical schools in 1995-1997 showed that of 56 course offerings related to CAM, only four were oriented to criticism. The author's course at Stanford University School of Medicine approaches CAM with the skepticism and critical thinking appropriate for unproven therapies. The author concludes by calling on all medical schools to include in their curricula methods to analyze and assess critically the content validity of CAM claims.
I am troubled by the approaches currently taken by most U.S. medical schools in their courses on what is commonly called complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Although CAM therapies are anomalous practices whose claims for efficacy are either unproved or disproved, my research indicates that most medical schools do not present CAM material in a form that encourages critiques and analyses of claims. In this article I briefly present what I believe are the reasons for the unwarranted acceptance of CAM, give highlights of my findings about CAM in the curricula of U.S. medical schools, and describe a course that I teach at the Stanford University School of Medicine that approaches CAM with skepticism and critical thinking. I conclude with thoughts about needed reforms in CAM curricula.