Education

The founding of the Faculty of Integrative Medicine by the Integrative Health Trust fulfils one of the charity’s primary charitable objectives - to provide first class IM education and information for doctors and nurses.

There is a growing public demand for Integrative Medicine, with long waiting lists for Britain’s leading integrative medical doctors. However in the UK there are currently neither colleges nor universities offering post-graduate IM courses for doctors and nurses, nor a recognised accrediting body.

FIM will be the UK’s leading provider of training to doctors and nurses in Integrative Medicine. To date, there has been little work to establish a regulatory structure for practitioners working in this field and training has been self-directed resulting in a vast range of skills, experience and knowledge. This has serious disadvantages both for the public and for the profession: for the public there is no formal way to judge the level of training, skill, knowledge or experience of an Integrative Medicine doctor, and the choice of practitioner will come down to a combination of word of mouth recommendations, marketing and charisma.

Following successful completion of the Diploma in the Study of Integrative Medicine a GP or nurse would be expected to be able to:

• Create innovative Integrative Medicine programmes for the assessment, treatment and prevention of illness within the context of their practice or community
• Understand and relate with empathy to their patients
• Assess the relative contribution to the person’s problem of their state of mind, body, spirit and environment
• Form individually tailored Integrative Medicine programmes drawing on the full spectrum of therapeutic options – orthodox, complementary, psycho-spiritual and nutritional
• Empower individuals to become actively involved in the promotion of their health and wellbeing through appropriate self help approaches, e.g. healthy eating, exercise, mind-body approaches, positive lifestyle change, thereby reducing demand for NHS services
• Monitor progress and adjust the IM programme in the light of each individual’s results
• Audit and research the efficacy, cost effectiveness and satisfaction levels of IM innovations
• Involve colleagues and health care commissioners in appraisal of findings and onward dissemination of positive learning
• Seek funding for their IM services to ensure that these are free at the point of delivery
• Offer low cost self-help approaches for common ailments reducing the financial burden on the NHS