Inter-professional faculty development for complementary and integrative healthcare: Effects on research, teaching, learning and practice

Teaching medical and other students in the health professions about complementary and alternative practices in healthcare requires that academic faculty have the requisite knowledge and skills in these areas. The Faculty Scholars Program (FSP) in Integrative Healthcare is a year-long inter-professional faculty development program that has been conducted at a large midwestern university to expand faculty competence in the science, teaching and clinical practice of integrative healthcare. Over the past decade, small groups of faculty from different professional fields have participated in a year-long intensive learning experience. Program participation required faculty attendance at 12 all day sessions and the development of a related educational, research or service project. Each didactic session followed a template that included discussion of evidence-based readings and homework, patient and practitioner presentations, inter-professional case discussions, experiential learning, educational project progress updates and written reflections. In addition to session evaluations, year-end personal narratives and program evaluations to assess pre-post achievement of learning goals and attitudes and were completed. To date, close to 100 faculty have participated in the FSP. Faculty typically described their experience as personally and professionally life-changing. Over 50 new educational courses, lectures and modules, and 40 research projects in areas related to integrative healthcare have been designed. The FSP has proven to be a successful training model for building teams of inter-professional faculty who can advance the dissemination of practice and knowledge of complementary therapies. It is easily replicable at other settings. Lessons learned as well as key curricular elements will be presented.