The forty-sixth annual AOA Research Conference on 'The Role of Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Primary Care Practice' will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada on October 7-10, 2002. It is designed to attract physicians, CAM practitioners, residents, medical students and investigators with particular interests/expertise in CAM. It will include addresses by some of the country's top CAM researchers and practitioners. The objective is to review current data that supports the premise of each modality, and assess how each fits into the overall picture of patient care in the U.S. The Conference is held simultaneously with the AOA Convention, which typically draws 6,000-8,000 attendees, mostly DOs. In addition to didactic sessions, the Conference includes a luncheon with research awards presentations, and a poster presentation session with a student prize competition. The entire Research Conference will be on CAM. An introduction and description of the leading role of NCCAM will be made by Dr. Christine Goertz. The rest of the opening session will be on biological-based therapies, including dietary supplements (Barry Oken, MD), marijuana (Nissar Darmani, PhD) and St. John's Wort (TBD). Session #2 (4 hrs.) on alternative medical systems will include naturopathy (Stephen McKernan, DO), vedic medicine (Robert Schneider, MD), Native American medicine (James Cannon, PhD, and Wabanang Kuczek), and health services data on Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment (OMT) (John K. Lynch, DO). The final session (4 hrs) on manual medicine will include chiropractic (William Meeker, DC), massage therapy (Janet Kahn, PhD), acupuncture (Daniel Bensky, DO) and recent research on OMT (Michael L. Kuchera, DO).
