Protect University Education in Natural Medicine

If you live in Australia, you may be aware of the current push by a group of misinformed medical/scientific experts who are lobbying government and universities to axe natural/traditional medicine courses, including Chinese medicine studies, at our universities. If you care about maintaining the integrity of Natural Medicine education in our country I urge you join me in signing this petition at change.org http://www.change.org/petitions/protect-university-education-in-natural-medicine

Why This Is Important
University education currently provides one important source of training for Complementary and Alternative Medicine practitioners. These courses are renowned for their ability to create research literate practitioners who are able to provide high quality evidence-based therapies to the public and therefore work effectively in the health field. They also encourage students with an interest in research to continue along that path, adding a unique viewpoint to the scientific community and enhancing the development of the knowledge base. In addition, University education adds to the ability of Complementary and Alternative Medicine to continue its vital role in contributing to the improvement of local and global health outcomes in an integrated manner. While we highly respect the scientific abilities of the leading members of Friends of Science in Medicine and their right to contribute to healthy debate, we feel they are misinformed about the nature of university studies in Complementary and Alternative Medicine. As such, we are concerned at their request to disband these courses. We ask that the Vice-Chancellors make a public statement pledging to protect the high quality and science based courses in Complementary and Alternative Medicine that they currently offer.

Petition Updates (posted by Rachel McDonald Petition Organiser)

Petition mention in The Australian
Thank you to Stephen Matchett and The Australian for drawing attention to this petition. The article is entitled "Push to keep alternative medicine in universities" and was published online on Feb 2nd 2012.

Why is this a time sensitive issue?
It has come to my attention that people aren't sure why I am targeting the university. There is a meeting of Vice-Chancellors to discuss these courses being held in March. FSM want them to change the courses at that meeting. We need the Vice-Chancellors to publicly pledge to protect our courses before they go into it
"The groundswell of protest from medical professionals comes after a decision in Britain that means from this year it will no longer be possible to receive a degree from a publicly-funded university in areas of alternative medicine, including homeopathy and naturopathy
Australia's vice-chancellors will meet in March and Professor Dwyer said his group was aiming to get a commitment from them to endorse health courses only with evidence-based science"
From Sydney Morning Herald

Support is Growing
I am grateful to Professor Kerryn Phelps and Senator Hanson-Young for supporting my petition via twitter. We're growing quickly, however we still need more help. Please keep the momentum going and keep an eye out for responses. Thanks

Thank you for helping us protect Natural Medicine education in Australia … Rosana

Rosana Bouzas Member Australian Traditional Medicine Society: 26167