Education & Integrative Medicine
The Integrative medicine department has conducted a sizable amount of research concerning education and integrative medicine. Topics range from how to educate providers using e-health tools to disseminating information about herbs and dietary supplements efficiently.
In addition Dr. Gardiner has worked with several key stakeholders to educate physicians about incorporating integrative medicine as a tool in their practice. Dr. Gardiner has also worked with the Massachusetts college of Pharmacy and Health Science to develop a curriculum with the objective of teaching students basic phytopharmacology, counseling skills on herbal medicine, evidence- based resources, manufacturing practices, and dietary regulations. A review of over 50 herbs touches on clinical use, efficacy, safety, and drug interactions.
Dr. Gardiner has explored the feasibility of on-line training about the most commonly used dietary supplements. She began working with Dr. Kathie Kemper in delivering and evaluating online curricula in both R21 and R01 funded studies. This has been the basis for my research in exploring the feasibility of delivering an online dietary supplement patient safety curriculum for clinicians to increase their inpatient safety knowledge and documentation of dietary supplements in the inpatient medical records. In an open study, 39 of 61 (64%) recruited clinicians completed all four patient cases and post-tests. Most (82%) were women and 59% were physicians. The mean dietary supplement knowledge test score increased after the curriculum and the clinician confidence score also increased.
