Students' attitudes toward health care professions derived from Eastern and Western medical traditions

At our University we have two health science professional programs: Chiropractic and Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. One goal of our University is to integrate these two programs at the levels of basic sciences, clinical sciences and clinical practice. There is lack of literature about the integration between these two programs. One of the challenges to integration of these two programs is that chiropractic derives from a Western medical tradition whereas acupuncture and oriental medicine derive from an Eastern medical tradition, and many students seek one program or the other because of their own similar cultural tradition. In order to understand how to devise methods to promote integration between these two programs, we performed a qualitative study of each programs' students' attitude towards the other program.

The themes included in our study were basic science and clinical science knowledge necessary for practice, clinical science skills necessary for practice, diagnostic methods used in clinical practice and treatment modalities used in clinical practice.

Based on our study results we made recommendations to improve both the programs to promote better integration. Out future research will examine the extent to which the faculties in the respective programs influence their students' attitudes.