It’s become conventional wisdom that most patients seeking medical cannabis advice from their doctors often are more knowledgable about the healing properties of the plant than the so-called professionals.
This is because recent breakthroughs in scientific research involving the ECS have not yet filtered into medical training institutions, mostly because of the stigma associated with cannabis. The result is that doctors are ill-prepared to deal with medical cannabis patients despite the phenomenal growth of this sector in the past few years.
This looks set to finally change as a US multidisciplinary panel of 23 medical experts has recommended that the ECS training be piloted in certain institutions with a view to expanding into all medical training facilities.
The panel was led by Yuval Zolotov, PhD, of the Department of Health Systems Management at Ariel University in Israel and the Division of General Internal Medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.
It finalized six core competencies to guide cannabis education in US medical schools. Students and physicians should understand:
· the endocannabinoid system,
· cannabis components and their biological effects,
· the US legal and regulatory environment,
· evidence for therapeutic indications,
· risk assessment, and
· basic clinical management.
The panel’s recommendations come at a time where almost 4 million Americans are registered medical cannabis pateints in 34 states. The panel noted that medical cannabis training was inadequate to serve this demand.
Formal medical-school instruction on cannabis science and clinical management remains limited—only 9% of medical school curricula mention medical cannabis, despite clinical evidence for its therapeutic benefit in pain, muscle spasticity, and chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting.
Dr Darshan H. Mehta of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital described the competency framework as a foundational reference for integrating cannabis education into medical training and noted that the competencies align with guidance from the American College of Physicians, which encourages evidence-based counselling for patients who use cannabis for chronic pain.
He added that physician education on cannabis can address health equity issues and misinformation.
“Medical students report receiving most of their cannabis education from unreliable sources and express confusion about its therapeutic role.”
He added that “patients rely on dispensary staff, online forums, or social media without reliable physician guidance,” but tools such as simulation exercises, patient-actor encounters, and artificial intelligence–powered case modules can help physicians navigate patient communication and complex risk counseling.
Dr. Zolotov and colleagues agreed. “As the next steps,” they wrote in their article, “we envision piloting these competencies in several medical school curricula, followed by a systematic evaluation of their impact on learners’ knowledge, skills, attitudes, and confidence.”
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