Welcome back to SIM for this spring quarter! This week, we gave a brief refresher on integrated medicine and an overview of our plans as a club this quarter.
What is Integrated Medicine?
Integrated medicine is a combination of both modern medicine and evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). To better understand how integrated medicine combines both modern medicine and CAM, we must look at each medicine type separately.
Modern medicine consists of biomedical treatments, ranging from the use of pharmaceutical drugs to operations like surgery. Modern medicine is good at treating acute illnesses and symptoms; however, its treatments can be highly specific, focusing on specific locations of the body.
On the contrary, CAM focuses on healing the person as a whole. The five pillars of CAM treatments are whole medical systems, mind-body medicine, biological medicine, manipulative and body-based practices, and energy medicine. Utilizing the strengths of both modern medicine and CAM, integrated medicine can maintain a holistic approach in treating the symptoms of acute diseases.
An example of integrated medicine could be treating a cancer patient with chemotherapy and mind-body medicine. The patient’s chemotherapy treatment is a modern medicine approach in biomedically kill the tumor cells in the body. While mind-body medicine focuses on the interactions of the brain, mind, body, and behavior to help the patient be balanced and resilient in their fight against cancer.
SIM’s Spring Quarter Plans
Our goal at SIM is to raise student awareness for evidence-based, integrative, and whole-person approaches to medicine and health. This quarter, we have lined up an amazing group of speakers excited to speak about their profession from optometry, tai chi, yoga, etc., at our workshops.
On top of our weekly workshops, we will be a part of numerous health fairs that will be going on this spring quarter, with the first one this coming Friday (4/9) and Saturday (4/10) at the Lavender Health Alliance’s Healthcare Hoedown. Also, we will be working closely with the UCLA Center of East-West Medicine ExploreIM team to remodel their website. This will include peer-editing existing articles and creating infographics for social media. Finally, we are excited to announce that we will be partnering with PILAGlobal for a wellness fundraiser, with all proceeds being donated to provide education and safety for refugee children.
If you would like to be a part of the planning process in the health fair presentations, working on the blog project with UCLA Center of East-West Medicine, and/or the PILAGlobal fundraiser, please fill out this our committee interest form, tinyurl.com/SIMcommittees. We would love to have you join any/all our committees!
Committee Descriptions
Health Fair Committee
Plan presentations
Give the presentations
Handle the logistics of collaborating with other organizations
Advertising
Blog Committee
Work closely with CEWM ExploreIM team
Peer edit existing articles on the blog
Create infographics
Share your work with the community
Events Committee
Plan Wellness Challenge
Work closely with PILAGlobal
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