Jennifer Brett
University of Bridgeport, USA
Title: TCM as a basis of inter-professional education for acupuncturistsphical thinking of Chinese traditional medicine
Biography
Biography: Jennifer Brett
Abstract
Although classical East Asian medicine has a history of several millennia, with attendant cultural variations, in the twentieth century the People’s Republic of China developed a standardized self-limited approach known as “Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)”. This modern interpretation of the classical medical tradition embraced theories and methods that are amenable to a Western scientific and anatomical view of the body and its mechanisms while rejecting the more esoteric and mystico-religious aspects of the traditional approaches. Modern TCM has been practiced in the PRC since 1953 with a corpus of data recording its treatment efficacy within western medical diagnostic parameters. The rise of inter-professional education/clinics (IPE/C) coincides with the era of the rise of the idea of healthcare teams in medical education and delivery. US patients increasingly self-choose services of a team of community CAM and conventional medical providers as their choice for care. Hospitals and health centers are adding CAM professionals to teams. The UB Integrated Clinics model delivering interdisciplinary patient centered care will be described in this. She will identify critical teaching and care competencies that have been utilized at the University of Bridgeport, emphasizing the role of TCM in integration of acupuncture into a team care model. The presenter will explore how a model of team-based care that includes TCM at the University of Bridgeport’s teaching clinic helps interns learn to work together for optimal patient care and discuss examples of strategies for inter-professional clinical collaboration in teaching clinics.