Gender differences among medical students in attitudes to learning about complementary and alternative medicine

Objectives: To explore gender differences in attitudes to CAM among Year 1, 2 and 3 medical students. Design: Survey; seven-item self-administered questionnaire. Setting: Plenary lectures at the start of semester 2 of the academic year at the University of Birmingham Medical School. Results: 35.6% of 662 students were mate and 64.4% female. Females were more likely than mates to feet CAM has an important rote in healthcare (p <0.001). This difference increased through the medical course (p <0.05). Females gave a more positive rating than mates to the use of five therapies in healthcare (p <001). Females were more positive than mates about learning the theory (p <0.001) and practice (p <0.001) of CAM and a greater amount of CAM curriculum time (p <0.001). Conclusions: If CAM teaching is optional females may be more likely to choose it. An unexpected consequence of more women than men entering medical school may be a positive impact on the development of integrated medicine. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.