Friday, January 02, 2009

Accredited woo from Mayo Clinic

It should come as no shock that Mayo is offering a course on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). After all Mayo, for some time now, has been listed on Orac’s Academic Woo Aggregator. What’s interesting about this is the fact that Mayo is not only offering but teaching woo as accredited CME (the fact that the offering would pass the Pharma free litmus test notwithstanding). I also learned from the brochure that Mayo is not only on Orac’s Aggregator but also a member of the Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine.

The course appears to be an exercise in promotion and experiential learning. If the CAM topics presented at Mayo’s otherwise excellent hospital medicine course are any indication it will not be a science based critique of CAM.

The topics range from soft woo to some of the wooiest woo. The course claims to be evidence based. Papers on various CAM modalities will be dutifully cited. (“Research” in support of CAM is hopelessly flawed as I have pointed out here and elsewhere).

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