About the Course

There is a sea change taking place in U.S. health care. New (and very old) understandings are emerging about health, wellbeing and resilience, as well as what leads to illness. Integrative health care can be described as patient-centered care using the best of Western biomedicine and complementary and alternative medicines. This course examines the forces calling this change forward, views and techniques of specific integrative modalities, and the challenges to implementation of IHC.

Course Description

Students will engage in a variety mind-body self-care practices while exploring the theory, history, practices and politics of integrative health care in the U.S. The course begins with an overview of integrative health and medicine and its implications for clinical care and public health practice. We will examine the roots of integrative health care in the intersection of globalization with various movements of the 1960s and 70s, and in frustrations with the U.S. healthcare system from patient, provider and policymaker perspectives; and identify barriers and boosts to widespread adoption of integrative health care in the U.S. Students will meet practitioners of acupuncture, massage therapy, yoga, Ayurvedic medicine, and integrative medicine to learn about each profession's cosmology of health and illness, diagnostics, and treatments. Methodological challenges and opportunities within integrative health care research will be explored in looking at the evidence base for various methods. Students will articulate through words or artistic expression their own understanding of health and illness, and produce and present final projects on a relevant topic of their choice.

About the Instructor

Janet Kahn is a senior policy advisor for the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine and Health, a research assistant professor in the UVM College of Medicine and a research affiliate in the UVM College of Nursing and Health Sciences. She currently serves on President Obama’s Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health; and Governor Shumlin’s Health Care Work Force Working Group. Dr. Kahn has served on the National Advisory Council for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, and recently completed the development and testing of a media-based program for veterans and their partners in collaboration with Dr. William Collinge. Dr. Kahn is a massage therapist and medical sociologist who trained at Antioch College, Harvard Graduate School of Education and Brandeis University.