An Empirical Approach to Curriculum Mapping in Traditional Kampo Medicine Education in Japan: Practical Methodological Study
Background: The integration of traditional and complementary medicine (T&CM) into modern medical education remains a global challenge. Kampo medicine, a Japanese traditional pharmacotherapy, is recognized in the , and is widely used; however, no structured methodology exists for efficiently designing curricula within limited time and resources. To address this gap, this study proposes a methodological framework—illustrated through Kampo medicine but generalizable to other forms of T&CM—for organizing and visualizing curricular content to guide educational needs assessment and curriculum design. Objective: The objective of this study was to develop and illustrate a reproducible mapping framework that integrates (1) real-world clinical utilization frequency and (2) the accumulation of biomedical evidence to inform educational prioritization and stepwise curriculum design for T&CM, using Kampo medicine as an exemplar. Methods: A mapping approach was developed based on two perspectives: frequency of use in clinical training and level of biomedical evidence. Twelve years of outpatient prescription data from Kyoto University Hospital were analyzed to identify the most frequently prescribed Kampo formulas. For the 10 most common formulas, PubMed searches were conducted to determine the number of randomized controlled trials. Data were integrated using hierarchical clustering and plotted along frequency–evidence axes to produce an educational priority map, which informed a stepwise curriculum design grounded in adult learning theory. Results: Prescription heat maps revealed substantial interdepartmental variation, and clustering identified distinct groups of formulas based on usage patterns. No statistically significant correlation was observed between prescription frequency and level of evidence (Pearson =0.228, 95% CI −0.469 to 0.750; =.53; Spearman ρ=0.498, 95% CI −0.308 to 0.926; =.14). Integrating these two perspectives enabled interpretation of real-world prescription patterns and supported a transparent educational prioritization framework. Conclusions: This study presents a feasible and adaptable framework that links real-world clinical data with biomedical evidence to inform curriculum design in T&CM. Rather than prescribing specific content, the framework offers visual decision-making tools that align educational priorities with institutional practice patterns and can be readily adapted to complementary, alternative, and integrative medicine programs internationally.
