The Rush College of Nursing received a five-year, $1.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health/National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine to provide an educational program on complementary and alternative therapies for nursing faculty, students, and practicing nurses. The program begins this fall semester. The Rush University College of Nursing is part of Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center in Chicago.
Although complementary/alternative medicine (CAM) therapies are widely used by patients to manage illness, there is little or no formal training available for health care providers on CAM. "And, there are only a few such formal educational programs for nurses in the country and none in the Chicago area," said Dr. Janice Zeller, PhD, RN, professor, Department of Adult Health Nursing and director of the CAM Education Program.
To educate nurses about CAM, Rush will use a two-pronged program that will integrate information on CAM therapies into the undergraduate and graduate nursing curricula, and develop and implement continuing education programs in CAM for nursing faculty and practicing nurses. "Our nursing faculty took a web-based course on complementary and alternative therapies this summer. Rush nursing students are required to take it starting in the fall," Zeller said. "The requirement marks a significant departure from previous approaches," she added.
"We've offered courses with related content in the past, but they were electives. With this NIH grant, we will be offering a required program that all undergraduate and master's nursing students will take," she said.
The program will provide nurses with expertise to assess use of CAM among diverse patient populations, teach nurses to critically appraise the safety and efficacy of CAM therapies, and prepare nurses to provide guidance to patients on the use of CAM therapies.
"The grant will also allow Rush to create learning experiences on different CAM therapies," Zeller said. "For example, we will target our pharmacology courses, emphasizing how herbal therapies may interact with other over-the-counter or prescription drugs."
Zeller said the program would also equip nurses with information to better advise patients on the CAM therapies they might be using.
"We know that patients are reluctant to tell their physicians about what CAM therapies they may be using," Zeller said. "Nurses, because they spend more time with patients, are often in a better position to advise patients on how CAM therapies interact with other medications or treatments."
Recent research in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that many patients undergoing surgery had been taking herbs, vitamins and other alternative therapies that, in some cases, had adverse effects when combined with medications administered before and during surgery. A study done by Rush hepatologist Dr. Donald Jensen found that a significant percentage of patients with hepatitis C were also taking a range of herbs and vitamins.
Zeller said that an important component of the program would instruct nursing students how to determine which CAM websites are useful and credible and how to recommend a good practitioner to patients.
Continuing education programs will target practicing nurses and nurse educators. Practicing nurses will learn about the benefits and risks of CAM therapies, and how to appropriately refer their patients to CAM practitioners. Nurse educators will learn how to integrate information about CAM therapies into their institutions' curricula.
The CAM program will also teach nurses and nursing students to understand and appreciate the cultural issues surrounding complementary and alternative therapies. Zeller said that what is mainstream health care in many countries might be considered alternative health care here in the United States.
"We want to teach nurses to assess patients' health care practices in a non- judgmental way, so that patients can feel comfortable sharing this information, without feeling their health care provider is judging them for using unconventional therapies. In this way, a partnership can be built between the patient and nurse to promote the exchange of information and knowledge," Zeller said.
For more information on the CAM Nursing Education Program, visit the Rush University website at www.rushu.rush.edu.
Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center includes the 824-bed Presbyterian-St. Luke's Hospital; 110-bed Johnston R. Bowman Health Center for the Elderly; Rush University (Rush Medical College, College of Nursing, College of Health Sciences and Graduate College); and seven Rush Institutes providing diagnosis, treatment and research into leading health problems. The medical center is the tertiary hub of the Rush System for Health, a comprehensive healthcare system capable of serving about two million people through its outpatient facilities and five member hospitals.