Education and training permeate every aspect of the Center’s activities. We learn from each patient we treat, and what we learn from each patient enhances the quality of care of subsequent patients. Our clinical work forms a core component of our education programs and generates questions we seek to answer in our research. Our education and training programs transform the thinking and the clinical care of those who train with us and this generates an educational ripple effect: the physicians and nurses we train become change-agents and leaders in the positive transformation of our healthcare system.

Since 1995, over one thousand students and clinicians have completed these programs.

Our extensive education programs include classes for:

• Medical students
• Residents
• Physicians
• Nurses
• Acupuncturists
• Other health care professionals
• Undergraduate and graduate non-medical students
• Interested public

In the summer of 2008, we launched a new six-week introductory course on integrative East-West medicine, “Introduction to Integrative East-West Medicine.” The goals of the course are to familiarize students with the U.S. healthcare system and the current healthcare crisis and to introduce students to integrative healthcare and forms of complementary and alternative medicine, particularly Traditional Chinese Medicine. Students learned about concepts underlying different forms of medicine, the integrative model as practiced at the Center, and how to apply these concepts to their own well-being. 

Since 2008, more than 100 students have enrolled. Students have come not only the undergraduate and graduate population form University of California campuses but also from other universities in the U.S. as well as from Japan, Korea, and Singapore.