Pediatrics Health

In medical practice there is confusion between integrative medicine and integrated medical education, to eliminate this unintended confusion, we have to define each of them clearly. By integrative medicine we mean combination between the western medicine and the complementary alternative medicine, which is based on 5 domains: Biologically based approaches, manipulative therapies, mind-body interventions, alternative medicine and energy therapy, while integrated medical education is a planned interdisciplinary unit of medical educational experience. The set of medical courses and their contents that students learn under guidance of the university to achieve the graduate competencies is known as medical curriculum which has several faces as explicit, implicit, up to extra-curricular

set. The medical curriculum structure may take the form of Discrete, Linear, Pyramidal or Spiral structure. Harden in 1984 had suggested that integration as one of the keys for assessing the degree of innovation in medical curricula through the SPICES strategy, which includes student cantered learning, problem based-learning, integration and community based with systemic approach. In 2000, he proposed harden ladder which explains the 11 blocks that lead to the integration in medical courses ranging from isolation up to multi, inter, tran disciplinary approaches. This entire study illustrates the steps of initiating integrated medical course in details, with illustration of the advantages and disadvantages of integration in medical education. The study also highlights the phases of evaluation and how to improve the existing integrated course via improving content, evaluation methods as well as the outcome of medical education.