About the EBCAM Program

The Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine (EBCAM) site has been created through an R25 grant from the National Institutes of Health/National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NIH/NCCAM) to the Tufts University School of Medicine (TUSM) in partnership with the New England School of Acupuncture (NESA). The website is intended to teach students and faculty how to gather and synthesize information about complementary and alternative (CAM) modalities, which many of their patients are using and to serve as an interactive electronic resource center to support the teaching of CAM using the evidence-based medicine (EBM) model. It is part of a broader initiative with specific aims to develop a curriculum with an EBM “theme” across TUSM's four-year curriculum.

Because of the developmental stage of the research literature related to CAM modalities, this project gives us an opportunity to teach students how to synthesize and utilize incomplete data, a problem that they will encounter throughout their medical career. We have created a website that students, faculty and any interested individuals may use as a guide to find information related to four selected CAM modalities: East Asian Medicine; Nutrition; Pain, Palliative and Supportive Care; and Religion and Spirituality. Content presented in this website reflects our assessment and review of the literature about the application and use of these selected CAM modalities in the diagnosis, treatment and management of common medical problems.

Summary

In using and exploring this site, we would like the user to think about how evidence is used in clinical practice. In investigating whether there is sufficient data to support the use of a CAM modality, we attempt to illustrate some important issues in the evaluation of the published literature that are applicable to any intervention being studied. In each of the four modalities of CAM explored in this website, we discuss some of the issues raised in evaluating the evidence for that intervention. In doing so, we hope that you will gain an appreciation for using the "best available evidence" in the care of patients, whether using CAM or a more "conventional" allopathic treatment.