ABSTRACT
At the 71st Annual Meeting of the Japan Society for Oriental Medicine in August 2021, we conducted a special program focusing on education in Kampo medicine, “Pre-graduate and post-graduate Kampo medicine education for the next generation.” As part of this project, we directed a symposium on the model core curriculum (core curriculum) in medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and nursing. The core curriculum in these fields includes Kampo education. Each institution shall promote education in accordance with the core curriculum, considering the characteristics of the field and the circumstances of the educational institution. We introduced the core curriculum in each field, and summarized and reported the current status of Kampo education in the field, points to note and suggestions for multidisciplinary cooperation, issues related to clinical practice and lack of educators, and future prospects.
ABSTRACT
We conducted a survey to measure the change of awareness about Kampo medicine following through four lectures of educational interventions delivered to the third-year students in a national registered dietitian training program. Awareness with regard to Kampo medicine was surveyed before and immediately after the interventions. We also collected the same questionnaire again five months after the interventions. The students' scores changed significantly between before and immediately after the interventions in the favorable direction regarding their interest in Kampo medicine, the necessity of including Kampo medicine in future educational programs, and the potential usefulness of Kampo medicine at their future workplaces, and the changes were maintained for five months.<BR>About 70% of students answered that they became more familiar with Kampo medicine as a result of the classes, but their knowledge of Kampo medicine was poor before the lectures and even immediately after the interventions. These results suggest that education about Kampo medicine for students in a national registered dietitian training program is important, because it could be a positive incentive for them to learn about Kampo medicines and herbs and to accept the use of Kampo medicine at their future workplaces.
ABSTRACT
Background and objective : Diet has been recognized as an important part of Kampo medicine, and various plants with which we often cook are included as components of many Kampo formulations. Accordingly, nutritional science is closely related to Kampo medicine. So there is a need for national registered dietitian and nutritional science students to learn Kampo medicine. Despite this, no survey has reported on the awareness of nutritional science students toward Kampo medicine in Japan. We conducted for the first time a survey on this awareness amongst nutritional science students about Kampo medicine.Methods : A 13-item anonymous questionnaire was distributed to the third-year students in a national registered dietitian training program in Japan.Results : We obtained answers from 509 students in 9 institutions. Of the respondents, 59.3% answered that they were interested in Kampo medicine, and 86.4% of the students who were not interested in Kampo medicine answered that the reason was they had no chance to learn it. However, 81.3% of the students answered that they would attend lectures on Kampo medicine if it was adopted as part of their curriculum.Conclusions : These results suggest that Kampo medicine should be included in educational programs for nutritional science students.