The Mind-Body Medicine Elective provides students with self-care and reflection skills combined with group support to adaptively deal with stressors, leading to overall improved well-being and empathy, and ultimately healthier, balanced professionals. This course will focus on the evidence base and indication for use of mind‐body techniques in both a personal and professional/clinical setting.

Learning Objectives:

The Planetary Health and Medicine course will be a 4-week part-time elective.  The first 3 weeks will be completed online, and students will be tasked with a reading list, prerecorded lectures, and other online curricula to understand the impacts of the climate crisis through various lenses.  They will be looking at climate change and how it impacts policy, health equity, and social justice and engage in discussion on these topics.  At the end of this course, students will have a better understanding of the impacts of climate crisis on the individual health of their patients, the populations they care for, and the community in which they live.

The last week will be devoted to the development and submission of a proposal on climate crisis/sustainability, focused on improvement of practices within our hospital system, medical school, and the surrounding community.  Students will address a topic from among the following categories: medical waste, food sustainability, clean air, clean water, or energy utilization. They will have the opportunity to engage community leaders, advocates, educators, and policymakers on how to implement solutions outlined in their  submission.  This climate and health proposal will contribute towards future policies and one that can be acted upon to improve the health and wellbeing of the patients at UC Health or the larger Cincinnati community.

The course will be offered in October and November, and then again in March and April with a maximum of 6 students in each block.  

Course Director: Chad Coe, MD

MEDS 6087 
Fundamentals of Integrative Health 
3 credit hours (Drs. John Sacco/Lauri Nandyal) 
Fall 25/50% online, flipped classroom model and offered on Mondays from 4-5:50p (in person) and Spring 100% asynchronous online. This course provides an overview of the basic principles and history of integrative health and medicine. This includes an emphasis on a critical review of the scientific evidence-based for integrative medicine approaches as they relate to prevention, treatment of chronic disease, and overall wellness. Students experience a variety of integrative health modalities and a focus on healthy lifestyle as models for disease prevention, treatment of illness, and overall health and wellness promotion. GRADUATE STUDENTS WILL ALSO:

• Analyze and critique relevant journal article.
• Meet apart from the undergrads for one hour bi-weekly/virtually for a journal club, each required to present.
• Describe the business and practice of integrative medicine including relative policy implications.

MEDS 6088
Science and Practice of Mind Body Medicine
3 credit hours (Drs. Sian Cotton/Barbara Walker)
Fall 100% asynchronous online and Spring 25/50% hybrid online, flipped classroom model offered on Tuesdays from 4-6p (in person). In this course students will experientially explore commonly used mind‐body modalities including mindfulness, guided imagery, breathwork, yoga, etc., which enhance stress management and promote overall wellness. This course provides an evidence‐base and indication for use of mind‐body techniques in a personal and professional/clinical setting. GRADUATE STUDENTS WILL ALSO:

• Understand how to synthesize existing literature in mind body medicine and propose a next pilot research step.
• Focus on science and choose one mind/body modality to research in more depth and propose a pilot research and summarize the literature in more depth – i.e. guided imagery as it relates to pre and postsurgical outcomes.

MEDS 7050 
Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and Compassionate Care 
3 credit hours (Dr. Meera Murthi)
New Fall 2021, 25/50% online hybrid, flipped classroom model and offered on Wednesdays from 3-5p (in person, via Zoom). This course will combine the 8-week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course with the 8-week Mindful Self Compassion (MSC) course, for a full 16-week course.  You will be using meditation, yoga and other proven mind/body modalities to cultivate awareness and reduce stress.  MBSR is a formal eight-week program with a daylong intensive that was created by Jon Kabat-Zinn in 1979.  This course is adapted to fit in with the standard college curriculum. The primary intention of the MBSR curriculum is to create a structured pathway to relieve suffering and increase wellbeing for people facing a host of challenges arising from a wide range of medical and psychological conditions and the demands and stressors inherent in the everyday lives of human beings. GRADUATE STUDENTS WILL ALSO:

• Describe and critically evaluate scientific literature of MBSR or MCS as it relates to various fields of study including health care and equity, social justice and policy, and trauma informed care.

MEDS 2087

Fundamentals of Integrative Health & Medicine
3 credit hours (Drs. John Sacco/Lauri Nandyal) 
Fall 25/50% online, flipped classroom model and offered on Mondays from 4-5:50p (in person) and Spring 100% asynchronous online. 

This interactive course provides an overview of the basic principles and history of integrative medicine and health while empowering students to learn tools for improving patient outcomes and their own self-care. This includes an emphasis on a critical review of the scientific evidence base for integrative medicine approaches as they relate to prevention, treatment of chronic disease, and overall wellness as well as listening coaching from your instructor to provide an interactive learning environment. Students experience a variety of integrative health modalities and a focus on a healthy lifestyle as models for disease prevention, treatment of illness, and overall health and wellness promotion to improve patient outcomes and their own self-care.

MEDS 2088

Science & Practice of Mind-Body Medicine 
3 credit hours (Drs. Sian Cotton/Barbara Walker) 
Fall 100% asynchronous online and Spring 25/50% online, flipped classroom model offered on Tuesdays from 4-5:50p (in person). In this course students will experientially explore commonly used mind‐body modalities including mindfulness, guided imagery, breathwork, yoga, etc., which enhance stress management and promote overall wellness. This course provides an evidence‐base and indication for use of mind‐body techniques in a personal and professional/clinical setting, including reviewing the scientific evidence.

MEDS 2089

Mental Well-being and Self Care 
3 credit hours (Meriden McGraw) 
Fall/Spring 100% asynchronous online. This course will introduce scientifically validated strategies shown to reduce stress and increase mental wellbeing. It will also seek to increase students’ capacity to overcome setbacks, challenges, and difficulties. The course will include exploration and discussion of the psychological science of self-care and mental wellbeing and include experiential learning of specific self-care strategies to bolster overall mental wellbeing and resiliency.

MEDS 2090
Music and Health
3 credit hours (Betsey Zenk Nuseibeh and Christina Weber)
100% asynchronous online. This course will expand student knowledge beyond traditional coursework by including experientials pared with the growing scientific evidence of music and health outcomes. Students in health-related fields will possess new ways to connect with their patients or clients through additional therapies and/or modalities that may be part of their existing skill set or of particular interest. Together we will learn how music can be a powerful, non-invasive therapy that can encourage exploration of self and community while supporting physical and mental well-being supported by evidence-based research.  Students will experience first-hand, the ability of music to improve health outcomes, including the role of music therapy in health care and community-based settings. 

MEDS 2092 - Introduction to Nature Based Therapies and Ecopsychology – 3 credit hours – (Dr. Barbara Walker) This course will be taught 100% Asynchronous online and will have four field trips throughout the semester TBD.

This course will introduce scientifically-validated strategies around the basic theories and approaches of Nature-Based Therapeutics including restorative environments, therapeutic horticulture, animal-assisted interactions, therapeutic landscapes, forest bathing, green care farming, facilitated green exercise, wilderness therapy and ecopsychology.  Three optional in-person experiential field trips. Dates TBD.

MEDS 3070

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and Compassionate Care 
3 credit hours (Dr. Meera Murthi)
NEW for Fall 2021, 25/50% hybrid online, flipped classroom model and offered on Wednesdays from 3-5p (in person, via Zoom). This course will combine the 8-week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course with the 8-week Mindful Self Compassion course, for a full 16-week course.  You will be using meditation, yoga and other evidence-based mind-body modalities to cultivate awareness and reduce stress.  MBSR is a formal eight-week program with a daylong intensive that was created by Jon Kabat-Zinn in 1979.  This course is adapted to fit in with the standard college curriculum. The primary intention of the MBSR curriculum is to create a structured pathway to relieve suffering and increase wellbeing for people facing a host of challenges arising from a wide range of medical and psychological conditions and the demands and stressors inherent in the everyday lives of human beings.

MEDS 3091
Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture
3 credit hours (Derek Johnson, Licensed Acupuncturist)
NEW for Spring 2022, 100% asynchronous online. This course provides the basis for understanding the mechanisms and principles by which traditional Chinese medicine is practiced. Students explore different therapeutic modalities.  Course content includes traditional Chinese philosophy as applied to treatment in acupuncture, herbal medicine, massage therapy, Tai Chi, and Qi-Gong. This course requires individuals to be open to learning about different philosophical beliefs upon which Chinese medicine is based.   

MEDS 4038

Integrative Gut Health 
3 credit hours (Dr. Lauri Nandyal)
NEW for Fall 2021, 25/50% hybrid online, flipped classroom model and offered on Monday’s from 1-3p (in person).

Digestive disorders are a primary reason many Americans seek health care. There is ample evidence that stress, the environment, and diet play leading roles in many of these conditions. Join us to explore the toll that the Western diet and lifestyles have on gut health and health in general, the role of Social Determinants of Health and nutrition-driven biology, and the broad influence the gut has on other biologic systems. Share the role of developing content to educate your classmates via weekly patient-focused case-based learning, along with enjoying the in-class application of Integrative models for more effective prevention and treatment of digestive diseases. This interactive course helps students learn how to apply these principles in a clinical setting to better educate their patients and ultimately improve patient outcomes.