D R A F T

A USC Center for Integrative Medicine, Education and Research (CIMER).

Complementary Alternative Medicine (CAM) includes many aspects of medical, physical and spiritual care that are not part of the traditional medical school curriculum.
Over the past decade the NIH has moved to an overt recognition of the existence and value of CAM, reflective of the increasing multicultural development of the US, and a more international view of science and medicine. As part of the process the NIH has adopted the term of Integrative Medicine, and has formed a sub-division of the NIH for Integrative medicine National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) embracing some 28 recognized sub-disciplines. A growing number of leading universities and medical schools offer CAM or Integrative Medicine within the curriculum; not so USC, a striking deficit considering the multicultural multi-belief society in which USC operates, and from which it draws many of its students.

The proposal for a USC Center for Integrative Medicine, Education and Research (CIMER) is innovative and will be unique to USC in carrying the idea of integration to a higher level, embracing all of the major missions in a variety of novel ways.

CIMER will integrate the aspects of alternative medicine across multiple levels:

1. Across the boundaries between traditional ‘western evidence based medicine’ and oriental and alternative medicine.
2. Across the 28 divisions of complementary and alternative medicine recognized by the (NCCAM) NIH as part of Integrative Medicine.
3. Across the multiple major missions of the University (and Health Science Schools); teaching, research, patient care, including related goals of administration, business and social management, politics and religion.
4. Across many of the major schools of the University, including Social Work, Education, Medicine, Dentistry (and OT/PT), Pharmacy, Anthropology, Law, Business, Religion, Music, etc.
5. Across the multiple educational levels of programs offered by USC, including undergraduate, graduate (PhD, Masters), professional schools (medicine, Dentistry, Business, Law), and USC community outreach programs in Los Angeles.
6. Across the multiple cultures that exist within the University, in the surrounding communities, and in the increasingly connected world within which the University continues to evolve.
7. Across multiple silos of information throughout the university community.

It is envisioned that CIMER, by virtue of this cross disciplinary ‘hyper-integrative model’ will be uniquely positioned among US universities to engage in innovative health care practices, to pioneer cross cultural research initiatives and to offer novel local and international educational programs to the benefit of USC as a college society, extending naturally into the community and world beyond. Crt. 4-25-07