The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is offering a new online Continuing Education Series on complementary and alternative medicine.

Washington, D.C. - infoZine - This lecture series offers health care professionals and the public the opportunity to learn more about complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies and the state-of-the-science about them through video lectures by some of the leading experts in this field. Health care professionals can earn Continuing Medical Education (CME) credits. Users who complete all the test chapters can generate an online certificate. The CME series is free and can be viewed at nccam.nih.gov/videolectures.

"With 62 percent of the American public using CAM, from dietary supplements to chiropractic, there is not only a great need to inform conventional and CAM health care professionals, but also to provide the public with information they can use to make decisions about their health care options," said Stephen E. Straus, M.D., NCCAM Director. "This CME series is a valuable addition to the other resources on the NCCAM Web site."

CAM is a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not presently considered to be part of conventional medicine. Examples are dietary supplements, hypnosis, chiropractic manipulation, and acupuncture. The series currently has six different lectures. Each lecture includes an overview of the CAM area, a review of research results and ongoing research, and discussion of the historical and practice perspectives.