Pacific College of Health and Science, 110 William St, New York, NY, 10038, USA.
Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 1300 Morris Park Ave, Bronx, NY, 10461, USA.
BMC Med Educ. 2021 Oct 29;21(1):546. doi: 10.1186/s12909-021-02956-6.
Integrative medicine has become a new healthcare model due to the growing evidence base for complementary and integrative therapies. However, some question whether complementary and integrative therapies can truly be integrated with biomedicine due to differences in underlying paradigms and theoretical bases. This study aimed to explore differences in scientific worldviews between students studying East Asian medicine and those completing an allopathic medical degree using the validated Thinking about Science Survey Instrument (TSSI).
122 medical students from Albert Einstein College of Medicine (Einstein) and 48 East Asian medicine students from the Pacific College of Health and Science (Pacific College) participated in this study. Participants completed the TSSI, a 60-item Likert-scale instrument that quantitatively measures the sociocultural resistance to, and support for science. Item and category means were compared between each group using an independent sample t-test.
Distinct differences were seen between the two groups of students with regard to age, gender distribution and prior education. Einstein students were generally supportive of science and Pacific College students were generally supportive of/positively neutral to science. Einstein students more strongly affirmed the relationship of science in relation to the categories of Epistemology, Public Health, Emotion and Aesthetics, the Economy, and Public Policy. Pacific College students more strongly affirmed the relationship between science and the category Race and Gender. There were no differences in the categories of Environment and Resource, Science for All, and Religion and Morality.
This study suggests that there are differences underlying the scientific worldviews of Einstein and Pacific College students, particularly with regard to Epistemology and Public Health. Such differences may be related to the different theoretical knowledge bases and ways of viewing health within the two disciplines. Despite demographic and educational differences between the two groups their overall scientific worldviews were similar with neither group expressing disparate views. This suggests that both groups may be receptive to the value of other paradigms. Providing courses that focus on different therapeutic approaches and paradigms during medical training may foster interprofessional understanding and collaborative practice between health professionals of different medical disciplines.
由于补充和整合疗法的证据基础不断增加，整合医学已成为一种新的医疗保健模式。然而，由于潜在范式和理论基础的差异，一些人质疑补充和整合疗法是否真的可以与生物医学相结合。本研究旨在使用经过验证的科学思维调查工具（TSSI），探讨东亚医学学生和全西医医学学生之间的科学世界观差异。
122 名来自爱因斯坦医学院（爱因斯坦）的医学生和 48 名来自太平洋健康与科学学院（太平洋学院）的东亚医学学生参加了这项研究。参与者完成了 TSSI，这是一种 60 项李克特量表工具，可定量测量对科学的社会文化抵制和支持。使用独立样本 t 检验比较了每组的项目和类别平均值。
两组学生在年龄、性别分布和先前教育方面存在明显差异。爱因斯坦的学生普遍支持科学，而太平洋学院的学生普遍支持/对科学持肯定态度。爱因斯坦的学生更强烈地肯定了科学与认识论、公共卫生、情感和美学、经济和公共政策等类别的关系。太平洋学院的学生更强烈地肯定了科学与种族和性别类别的关系。在环境与资源、全民科学和宗教与道德等类别中没有差异。
这项研究表明，爱因斯坦和太平洋学院学生的科学世界观存在差异，特别是在认识论和公共卫生方面。这些差异可能与两个学科的不同理论知识基础和看待健康的方式有关。尽管两组学生在人口统计学和教育方面存在差异，但他们的整体科学世界观相似，两组学生都没有表达不同的观点。这表明两组学生都可能接受其他范式的价值。在医学培训中提供专注于不同治疗方法和范式的课程，可能会促进不同医学学科的医疗保健专业人员之间的跨专业理解和合作实践。
