Dr. Robert Schneider, MD, FACC, dean of MUM’s Maharishi College of Perfect Health, and Priyam Sharma, Administrative Dean of SMU Faculty of Medicine, sign the collaboration agreement.

The St. Martinus University of Medicine (SMU) is located in Curaçao, an island nation in the Caribbean.

Dr. Robert Schneider and Priyam Sharma are inspired about the coalition of their universities, which will not only train skilled physicians, but will provide a fresh perspective on health.

MUM launches integrative medicine dual degree program
by Maharishi University of Management, Fairfield, Iowa, USA, Achievements
8 June 2015

Maharishi University of Management (MUM) is beginning a first-of-its-kind integrative medicine degree program where students study modern medicine, Maharishi AyurVeda, and integrative medicine concurrently. The dual degree MD/MS program is a collaboration with St. Martinus University of Medicine (SMU) located in Curaçao, an island nation in the Caribbean. The first students are targeted to begin classes in September 2015.

“Almost half of the academic medical institutions and a third of the hospitals in the US have integrative medicine departments or services,” said Dr. Robert Schneider, MD, FACC, dean of MUM’s Maharishi College of Perfect Health, who spearheaded this coalition. “They will need doctors who are systematically trained in this new and emerging field.”

Students who enroll in the program will spend their first two years at the St. Martinus campus studying the basic science courses of medicine. The curriculum incorporates the principles of Consciousness-Based education and is organized around the ancient Ayurvedic system of the eight fundamental building blocks of the universe (Prakritis), which correspond to the eight major organ systems of the body.

Students will take one class in Maharishi AyurVeda every day alongside their modern medical studies. They will learn to correlate and integrate the perspectives of modern medicine and traditional natural medicine from the first day of class and throughout their formative years of medical school.

During their last two years students will rotate through American hospitals for clinical training in specialties such as internal medicine, surgery, family medicine, and psychiatry. One of their rotations will be at the MUM campus Maharishi AyurVeda Clinic. During the clinical rotations, students will continue their studies to integrate modern medical and natural medical practices via ongoing teleseminars with MUM faculty and guest speakers.

“We created this partnership with St. Martinus University because they have a strong track record of training doctors who subsequently practice in the US and Canada,” said Dr. Schneider. “Approximately 95% of their graduates obtain residencies in the US, which is a common measure of success for a medical school.”

“We are committed to providing our students with every resource available to help them succeed in their quests for achieving residency programs and ultimately being medical practitioners,” said Priyam Sharma, dean of Administrative Affairs, SMU Faculty of Medicine. “We believe an MD/MS option with MUM serves this goal because it allows our students to not only increase their set of available skills as physicians, but also because it provides a fresh perspective on the approach students will take on patients when they become physicians.”

After successful completion of the program, each student will receive an MD from SMU, and an MS in Maharishi AyurVeda and integrative medicine from MUM. The MD degree from SMU will allow graduates to take the US medical licensure exams and be eligible to practice medicine in the US. In addition, the MS degree will qualify these physicians to practice medicine that systematically and scientifically integrates the best of all worlds of medicine for prevention-oriented, holistic health care.

For more information and to apply, see www.mum.edu/MD-MS.

© Copyright 2015 Maharishi University of Management