Project Title: Pathways to Health Equity: Training in Herbal Medicine and Integrative Practices
Project Leads: Jenifer Matthews, Kavita Mishra, Yvette Coulter, Candy Tsourounis, Ra Adcock, and Nathan Williams
Submitted Proposal:
This two-part clinical & educational project advances health equity by fostering culturally respectful care and expanding awareness of integrative health practices, specifically herbal medicine and supplements. UCSF pharmacy and medical students, along with the Osher Center’s clinical front desk staff and medical assistants, will participate Integrative Health-Pharmacy Elective: Supplements & Herbal Medicine Interdisciplinary Course, which emphasizes hands-on, interprofessional learning.
Briefly, through group discussions, case studies, and workshops, students and staff will work alongside each other and engage with guest instructors from biomedicine, integrative health, and East Asian and South Asian medicine. Topics like supplement safety, medication reconciliation, and the needs of specific populations—including cancer patients, children, and older adults—will be explored in depth. This elective will explore the history of East Asian Medicine in the Bay Area through guided walking tours of Oakland and San Francisco Chinatown, focusing on early practitioners, the herbal medicine movement, and the racism they faced. Participants will also tour a longstanding community-based herbal medicine manufacturing company to observe the production process.
Initially, we plan to pilot this elective twice within the academic year. We hope to create sustainability with this project through recording instructor’s didactics for future use. We also plan to use initial funding to support working with a community partner to develop an interactive, self-directed walking tour that highlights the herbal histories of Oakland, San Francisco Chinatown, and Japantown.
Through cross-discipline collaborations and community-based learning experiences in multicultural settings, learners will gain a nuanced understanding of the role of culture in health and healing. We hope to cultivate the knowledge and skills necessary to serve all patients with care that respects their unique health needs and cultural background, as well as provide our centers patient-facing staff with deeper integrative health knowledge, and further our offerings to support their professional growth
Proposed Timeline:
Nov-Dec 2024: Identify Stakeholders, Solidify Learning Objectives and Identify Competencies
Jan-March 2025: Curricular Planning, Identify Speakers
April-June 2025: Develop Flipped Learning Classroom Recordings and Patient Materials
July-Sept 2025: Live Historical Herbal Guided Tour Pilot and Creation of Recorded Walking Tour
Updated Budget: $12,944.44
Budget Justification:
Course Coordinator: Yvette Coulter will be responsible for working with educators to create and record modules and creating flipped module classroom in Rise. She will also work on creation of the self guided walking tour, plotting locations and recording oral history for each site.
Course Planning Stipends: 3 course planners (Candy Tsourounis, PharmD, Ra Adcock DACM, LAc, Nate Williams, PharmD, PhD(c)) to meet and help develop/shape content for modules.
Educator Honorariums: Compensation for planning and creating recorded content for enduring materials like videos to be used in flipped classroom modules for health care professionals and staff, as well as patient facing materials. Speakers to be discussed by Course Planners.
Walking Tour Development: Compensation for community collaborator to lead in person guided tours for Osher clinical staff and healthcare providers. Tour to include visiting a local TCM Herbal manufacturing company as well as community tours to learn about the history of herbal medicine in the Bay Area. Funding to be used to create a recorded walking tour that can be used for future learners.
UCSF Recharges. UCSF liability insurance [UCSF General, Automobile, and Employment Liability (GAEL) Assessment], UCSF recharge for data network infrastructure costs, and ITFS recharge for hardware and software support costs.
List any other committed, pending or prospective sources of funding for this project.
We have also submitted a proposal to fund faculty FTE through the UCSF Program for Interprofessional Practice & Education (PIPE), in to support the two week clinical rotation. We hope to use these funds to support creating materials for Asynchronous components, that can be used for health professions, education, training materials for clinical staff, and patient facing materials. Dr. Matthews’ efforts will be supported through education funding related to her role as associate education director. Dr. Mishra’s efforts will be supported through her role as Director of Clinical Programs.
Evaluation:
Given the modules will be used asynchronously for a variety of purposes, we plan to assess changes in the learner's knowledge base and attitudes towards the use of herbal medicines with pre and post surveys for the modules.
As stated above, we are simultaneously applying for funding through PIPE and hope to offer a live elective course. The elective evaluation plan will incorporate formative and summative assessments to measure the effectiveness of the interdisciplinary learning model and the integration of supplements and herbal medicines into clinical practice. Summative assessments will include a final group presentation or project demonstrating the students’ integrated knowledge of supplement/herbal medicine and its application in specific clinical settings. Additionally, pre- and post-course surveys will be conducted to assess changes in students’ attitudes towards integrative medicine, supplement/herbal medicine use and their confidence in applying these practices.
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Comments
Thanks so much for your
Thanks so much for your submission. Can you please include your proposed budget? We only need the estimated total cost at this time.
This is an exciting idea!
This is an exciting idea! Would it be focused on herbs from East Asian medicine and Ayurveda, or more broadly? Who would the training be available to?
Thanks for the question-We
Thanks for the question-
We are hoping to draft a curriculum that includes an overview of herbs and supplements and our hope would be to foster an appreciation of herbal medicine (historical uses, herbal medicine/plants and dependence on a healthy planet/soil, and how when working with herbs requires a framework shift from traditional biomedical training).
The curriculum will be focused on Western as well as Eastern herbs.
The training for this first round will target pharmacy and medical students, and we are working to see if we can include TCM students as well.
this seems like a great idea-
this seems like a great idea--especially if it's an opportunity to provide some financial support for curriculum development and teaching to herbalists who UCSF learners wouldn't typically have access to
Please provide additional
Please provide additional details on how this project advances integrative health equity.
The review committee is unlikely to fund two proposals from the same author. Please consider which proposal is most meaningful to you and only submit one.
I love the idea of offering
I love the idea of offering this to UCSF students & Osher staff together! Curious who are the potential partners to create a walking tour. This could be an interesting model to look at https://www.berkeleysouthasian.org/