Complementary and alternative medicine continues to gain acceptance in many of the nation’s most prestigious medical institutions. The newest college to incorporate nonconventional medical training is the University of Pennsylvania, which has moved to include acupuncture, herbal remedies, and massage therapy into its curriculum. The university will pair with Maryland’s Tai Sophia Institute to instruct medical students. Of the 125 medical schools in the United States, 95 now require at least some coursework in CAM.

In related news, the Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona is introducing Botanical Foundations, a new online course offering continuing education credit for many health-related professions.

The three-month course includes history and philosophy, preparations, quality control, research, toxicology, and more, taught by Tieraona Low Dog, M.D., advisory board member for the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. The program now also offers an online course called Nutrition and Cancer, which offers a diet foundation for prevention and treatment.