“We have over (2000 hours, 4000 hours, 3 years, 4 years) of education and they want to do acupuncture with (a weekend, less than ten, 200 hours) of training!The public is in danger.”
“The (PT’s, Chiropractors, MD’s) doing acupuncture are significantly undertrained! If they want to do acupuncture they need to go to acupuncture school, or at least take (400, 500,1000) hours of training.”
It’s a no brainer, right? But ….
1) We are comparing our total professional education to additional post-professional-degree hours.
An MSAOM curriculum includes: Biochemistry, Introduction to Organic Chemistry, Anatomy and Physiology, Microbiology, Introduction to Western Pathology, and a Survey of Western Clinic Sciences (3 semesters). M.D.’s have already covered these classes in their education.
2) Does the aspect of “our” medicine they want to use require a full TCM education?
Is Tai Qi, Qi Gong, Introduction to Botany, 40 credits of herbal medicine, a semester of auricular acupuncture and 3 semesters of point location needed for a PT to safely use a needle to release a trigger point? (If you insist they learn all of that, won’t they then argue that they can also do auricular acupuncture and distal points?)
3) How well-educated are most acupuncture school graduates? How worthwhile was most of their time spent in school?
ACAOM standards were based on the programs that existed at the time credentials were being established. They were not based on a careful analysis of what was needed to train safe, effective, successful practitioners. Acupuncture related Facebook groups include posts asking about using moxa to turn breech babies, how to treat TMJ (no pulse, tongue, or presentation information provided), and recommendations for treating people undergoing chemotherapy. With our thousands of hours of training, shouldn’t we know the answers to these questions? (Or have a better source than Facebook for answers?)
4) Is there a correlation between the length of a program and the quality of the graduates? Were the early U.S. practitioners (many of whom had less than 1300 hours of training) harming the public?
It is an article of faith in the acupuncture community — our training of X hours is necessary for safety, and anything less is an affront and a danger. Yet a colleague recently wrote “I am at a medical acupuncture conference. Exceeding my expectation. The presenters know their stuff. Lots of depth…. I am going to find out about their training. Maybe they are a special group….what i am seeing here meets any high standards TCM conference…. Very surprised.”
The more (as defined by us) = better has done us no favors. The numbers we fight for are arbitrary. The argument is easily refuted by other providers. Adopting it within our profession has increased the business strangling debt-burden new grads carry. And created internal divisions which only further harm our growth. (How long before a state (or the NCCAOM) demands the FPD to become an LAc?)
Please, let’s let the knee-jerk “less is dangerous, more is better” argument go.