The National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded an 8-week research-intensive complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) short-term research rotation in the T35 category. This rotation occurred annually for 5 years and took place during the last 4-week rotation of year 3 and continued throughout the first 4-week rotation of year 4. Students were mentored by an interdisciplinary group of researchers and physicians on research methods, hands-on CAM methods, and scholarly presentations.
Students who participated in the rotation received a standard NIH predoctoral fellowship, tuition reimbursement, and a research expense–related stipend. These students were exposed to 64 hours of research didactic activities (
Figure 1). In addition, all students worked full time for 8 weeks on a hypothesis-driven CAM research project under a faculty mentor and completed a scholarly activity (eg, poster presentation or journal publication).
During a 5-year period, 36 students completed the CAM research rotation. In focus groups conducted after completion, the students indicated that the overview of CAM research covered in the rotation was excellent. In particular, they mentioned that the challenges associated with conducting a CAM research project (eg, choosing the correct control) were beneficial. In addition, all students said they benefited greatly from the biostatistics and epidemiology portions of the rotation. Students also expressed great interest in the institutional review board meeting, tours of the animal facility, and sections reviewing the challenges associated with CAM research (eg, publication issues and experimental design issues).
Topics of students’ research projects include the lymphatic system, prosthetic feet, and osteopathic manipulative treatment for pregnant women. A 5-year postanalysis of the rotation participants revealed that 25 publications were published in peer-reviewed journals. Two students used data from their rotation studies to successfully write grant proposals and receive funding—one from the American Osteopathic Association and the other from a pharmaceutical company. One student was accepted into the NIH Fogarty International Clinical Research Scholars and Fellows Program and spent a year conducting a research project under the NIH umbrella. Another student reported that at his interview for a prestigious residency program, the interviewer told him they had never invited an osteopathic medical student for an interview but had selected him in part because of his participation in the CAM research rotation program.