(288) Enhancing Wellness & Integrative Medicine: Curricular Track, Electives, APPE’s and Community Involvement

Objective : UNE SOP faculty and student pharmacists are committed to promoting several wellness and self-care initiatives within our curriculum and our community.

Methods: As part of our Wellness and Integrative Medicine track, students focus on their own self-care as well as expand wellness into pharmacy practice and how they approach patients. This track allows a “bundle” option for elective course choices, including Burnout, Integrative Pharmacy, and Lifestyle Medicine. Students also complete a faculty APPE to apply learned concepts and offer in-depth practice in ambulatory care settings.

Results: Elective courses offer an array of options to enhance wellness involvement for students. The Burnout course includes origins of burnout and pathophysiology of stress, resilience, work habits, self-care, spiritual components of wellness, social connections, sleep, and integrative medicine approaches to healing. The Integrative Pharmacy course covers evidence-based use of botanicals, supplements, food as medicine, mind-body medicine, and an overview of Eastern medicine approaches. The Lifestyle Medicine course introduces concepts of lifestyle and relations to disease state management, including trauma related to the nervous system and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), nutrition, food diary discussions, alternative medicine, effects of environmental toxins and toxic load. Students design and implement plans for themselves and patients, participate in group fitness classes, mini-health assessments, meditation, yoga classes, and art therapy.

Conclusions: Our Wellness Committee is also very active on campus and within the community. They lead required class information sessions P1-P3 years, covering topics including healthy eating, empathy, stress, burnout, and financial wellness. Additionally, they lead our “Wellness Week,” and other focused sessions throughout the year. Students are invited to several events from succulent planting, yoga, meditation breaks, self-care lectures, volunteering at community brown-bag sessions and health fairs.