U.S. medical students' beliefs in the effectiveness of alternative medicine

Introduction: While the use of complementary and alternative medical therapy (CAM) is common in the U.S., there have been no prior national studies of CAM-related attitudes of U.S. medical students. Methods: We surveyed the Class of 2003 at freshman orientation, entrance to wards, and senior year in a nationally representative sample of 16 U.S. medical schools. Our primary outcome of interest was students' Likert-scaled responses to the statement “Alternative medicine can often be as effective as traditional medicine.” Results: With 4764 responses overall (a response rate of 80.3%), 9% strongly agreed, 45% agreed, 34% neither agreed nor disagreed, 11% disagreed, and 2% strongly disagreed that alternative medicine could be as effective as traditional medicine. Students became modestly more polarized in their beliefs, moving from 37% of students neither agreeing nor disagreeing with the statement at freshman year to 31% at senior year. Several variables including gender, paternal educational level, ethnicity, religion, political self-characterization, intended specialty, and prevention-orientation were associated with agreement. Discussion: U.S. patients commonly use CAM, but newly-minted U.S. physicians are often skeptical about its efficacy. This disconnect may make it difficult to integrate patients' CAM use into clinical decision-making.