Fellowship in Integrative Medicine and Ayurveda for Doctors and Advanced Practice Providers, MS

Program Description

In tandem with individual and collective health trends, the healthcare profession is rapidly evolving. More than 50% of the population suffers from chronic disorders, which are substantially lifestyle and behavior related. Healthcare consumers increasingly demand whole-person care for prevention, treatment, and health promotion. At the same time, physicians and advanced practice providers are suffering from high rates of burnout and occupational stress. Clinician burnout is a grim reality, with more than 40% of physicians and health care providers reporting an increase in burnout due to the pandemic.

MIU’s Fellowship Master of Science In Integrative Medicine and Ayurveda for Doctors and Advanced Practice Providers not only provides academic knowledge and clinical training but promotes and provides tools for clinician self-care and wellbeing that are actively practiced within the program. The curriculum provides graduates with the necessary skills to incorporate a range of integrative medicine and Ayurvedic modalities into clinical practice. Doctors completing this program will be eligible for the examination and board certification in integrative medicine through the American Board of Physician Specialties (ABPS), the only multi-specialty certifying board in the US to offer Integrative Medicine board certification through the American Board of Integrative Medicine (ABOIM). For advanced practice providers, this program offers advanced training, a master’s degree, and recognition according to the guidelines of their professions. The MIU College of Integrative Health and Medicine faculty teach the program in collaboration with the University of Arizona Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine.

The Fellowship MS can be completed part-time over two years with one week of clinical study in-residence at MIU’s campus in Fairfield, Iowa each year.

Program Goals

The Fellowship MS In Integrative Medicine and Ayurveda for Doctors and Advanced Practice Providers is designed to:

• Provide a unique combination of general integrative medicine and focused training in Ayurveda, utilizing the combined faculty and teaching resources of MIU’s College of Integrative Health and Medicine (CIHM) and the University of Arizona Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine (AWCIM).
• Provide training in a hybrid online and onsite learning model that allows professionals to continue their clinical practices while enrolled in the program.
• Meet core competencies for fellowship training in integrative medicine required for board certification by the American Board of Integrative Medicine (ABOIM).
• Provide general integrative medicine and focused training in Ayurveda while allowing students to complete their MS degree with two years of part-time study.

Program Learning Outcomes

Students who successfully complete the Fellowship Master of Science in Integrative Medicine and Ayurveda for Doctors and Advanced Practice Providers will be able to:

1. Facilitate the whole person health in patients and clients, including all factors that influence wellness and disease: mind, body, spirit, and environment.
2. Practice self-care so that the practitioner experiences whole-person health by engaging in behaviors and self-care practices that promote optimal health and wellbeing.
3. Demonstrate skills in relationship-centered care, which is a partnership between provider and patient.
4. Utilize all appropriate approaches, professions, and disciplines of healthcare, including conventional, complementary, and supportive methods.
5. Emphasize the most effective, least harmful healthcare methods to facilitate the body’s innate healing response.
6. Advocate prevention and health promotion.
7. Practice science-based healthcare that is inquiry-driven, evidence-informed, critical thinking, open to new paradigms, and combined with compassion. This approach considers the triad of EBM: best evidence, patient values, and clinical judgment.
8. Practice personalized medicine with medical decisions, practices, and interventions tailored to the individual patient.
9. Foster community, society, and planetary health.
10. Develop expertise in the knowledge and clinical practice of Integrative Ayurveda, a whole system of Consciousness-Based health care including personalized prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and health promotion for individuals and society using natural modalities that embrace all the domains of health.

Entrance Requirements

The Fellowship MS in Integrative Medicine and Ayurveda is open to Doctors and Advanced Practice Providers including:

• Physicians (MD, DO)
• Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRN, NP, CNM, CNS, CRNS)
• Physician Assistants (PA)
• Naturopathic Physicians (ND, NMD)
• Doctors of Pharmacy/Pharmacists (PharmD)
• Dentists (DDS, DMD)
• Chiropractors (DC)
• Doctors of Chinese Medicine (DACM, DAOM)

Applicants must complete the application for admission, including transcripts. As a part of the self-care track of the Fellowship MS, all students practice the Transcendental Meditation technique. Applicants are encouraged to learn the Transcendental Meditation technique before beginning the program or within the program’s first month during the self-care module.

Graduation Requirements

To graduate with a Fellowship Master of Science in Integrative Medicine and Ayurveda for Doctors and Advanced Practice Providers students must successfully complete the didactic, clinical, scholarly and research portions of the curriculum for a total of 41.70 credits of required online courses and two on-campus Residential Clinical Weeks.