Training Researchers in Clinical Integrative Medicine (TRIM)

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PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Integrative medicine, including meditation, yoga, tai chi, massage, and other modalities are widely used by Americans in the hope of obtaining health benefits. Evidence for the health effects of these practices, however, has important limitations. The goal of the “Training for Research in Integrative Medicine” (TRIM) fellowship is to train outstanding pre- and postdoctoral behavioral and social scientists, physicians, and other qualified health professionals to design and conduct rigorous clinical and translational research in preparation for research careers in integrative medicine. The program has four postdoctoral positions and two predoctoral positions. The UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine provides an exceptional context in which to offer the program, and TRIM is designed to leverage the extensive training opportunities available as a result of being embedded in the rich UCSF research environment. Since its inception 14 years ago, TRIM has maintained a record of attracting extremely well qualified candidates who collectively have had a substantial impact on the field of integrative medicine research. Nine of 20 post-doctoral fellows who have completed training have gone on to receive K career development awards. The TRIM program provides an interdisciplinary clinical and research environment; strong mentoring by an experienced research faculty; advanced training in clinical, biological, and psychological research methodologies; special attention to research methodology issues that are particularly relevant to integrative medicine research; extensive training in methods to enhance reproducibility in research; opportunities to conduct original research; training in research ethics; and exposure to diverse integrative approaches to patient care involving all age groups from early childhood through old age. The interprofessional TRIM faculty is strongly committed to mentoring and has 11 core and 10 affiliated members representing internal medicine, family medicine, psychology, neuroscience, molecular biology, anthropology, biostatistics, psychoneuroendocrinology, women's health, pediatrics, health services research, medical ethics, and psychiatry. A major strength of the training program is the clinical advisory faculty who are available to provide technical assistance and consultation on specific integrative medicine approaches that trainees might want to study. TRIM faculty provide expert and comprehensive mentoring, as well as required and optional academic activities that are tailored to each trainee's individual learning objectives. New curriculum components include a greater emphasis on social determinants of health. The program is strongly committed to addressing issues of health equity and diversity, equity, and inclusion among its faculty and trainees; as one metric, 43% of pre-doctoral fellows since the last renewal are underrepresented minorities in medicine. The TRIM program provides research training and career development opportunities that will equip a new generation of researchers to expand our knowledge-base of whether and how integrative medicine approaches work for specific health conditions.