So this is apples and oranges. There is no “bringing together of the professions”. There are MD’s who practice allopathy and think that magically makes them an acupuncturist with 300 hours of training. And no, it’s not okay to say “you may not be well-trained but I bet you’ll get the hang of it in a few years of defrauding patients”.

I’m sure this is not the case with you however, some MD’s call themselves Licensed Acupuncturists and don’t even realize that they are Certified Acupuncturists (the hobbyist certification). That’s bizarre. Plus they aren’t required to tell their patients they aren’t really fully trained acupuncturists but instead perhaps hope to play one on tv.

So, no bringing together of the professions, there’s no real connection. And now the physical therapists are doing “dry needling”. Surprise, that’s acupuncture! Chiropractors in Fl “do” acupuncture with 100 hours. MD’s there are able to practice acupuncture in 100 hours.

If you went to NCCAOM accredited acupuncture school and studied and applied acu for several thousand hours, you deserve a lot of credit and earned a place in the acupuncture profession.

Everybody else is playing at the patients expense.
As Ted Kaptchuk said in Web That Has No Weaver, give a lay person a needle with antibiotics in it and (s)he may be able to do a lot of good. It doesn’t make them an MD. Same with acupuncture needles. A monkey could get some results but not the same as a properly trained acupuncturist.

Perhaps we should just drop the educational training and recruit heroin addicts since they are great with needles.

I appreciate your thoughtfulness. However my comments aren’t divisive they are fact. A teensy bit of training is not just as good as several years that are “in no way complete”.

This is VERY helpful to TCM in the west. I will understand your complete veracity if you stand behind this statement by agreeing in theory to allow acupuncturists to do surgery with 300 hours (more than enough!).

Wishing you a Happy New Year and thanks for what I believe is a genuine concern for a great outcome.

My extensive experience is that the training for both licensed acupuncturists and physician acupuncturists is in no way complete, rooted in depth or 4 quadrant/integral theory. Both are a start to hopefully what is a lifelong open book process, as we remain more interested in what we don’t already know than in making declarations which are divisive and unhelpful to the practice of CM in the west.

I don’t think Dr Walkey has her facts straight here – I think she should do more research before publishing things like this.

Best wishes,

Edward Neal MD (and LAc)

P.S. My first course in acupuncture was the ‘two-week course’ and I now teach Chinese medicine as a full-time career and teach Classical Acupuncture from the Neijing.

IDIOTS WITHOUT OVERSIGHT
I don’t see having MD’s sit for the NCCAOM exam as a solution and here’s why.

Any non-MD should then be able to take an A&P course and sit for the boards. No need for a digested TCM theory that provides the background of understanding the paradigm that for instance explains the connection between the kidney chi and the lungs and what the process entails.

They’d have no practical or basic understanding of applied pulse diagnosis. No established basics on needling technique.

No, it is test-taking and that plays into the brain/ego concept that MD’s already use and doesn’t allow them to create new neural networks that lead to how to use TCM expertly and as a default for effectively treating most healthcare problems instead of mugging the system and “improving” it by adding trash pharmaceuticals.

Either they train and practice acupuncture clinically or they have no business pretending to be acupuncturists without any legal or apparently, ethical standards, to force disclosure that they are idiots without oversight. In many cases, thoughtful idiots. Imagine how pissed they’d be if we sat for some sort of surgical application boards and began doing brain surgery. It’s just about being able to thoughtful cut a bit here and there with finesse. I feel I could do it. Barbers did it in the 1900’s. Seriously I could be a “certified” brain surgeon rather than licensed cause I don’t think it’s all that complicated! Right? Hand me a clamp.

If western medical sucks, and 50% of it does, practice that or dig ditches or do whatever that says “I’m an ethical contributing human” rather than “I’m charging your insurance, let ME worry about the results” and then provide none.

Other than that I have no opinion.

By the way, I have personally experienced cows laughing. I mean really laughing. !!!!! I didn’t know they could do that but they can. Really. But I digress.

Many Licensed Acupuncturists I have spoken with feel the way to solve this issue would be relatively easy: simply require MDs (and other healthcare providers) who want to incorporate acupuncture to sit for the 2 day NCCAOM exam (as we have), pass it and the “problem” would largely be resolved (although not addressing possible oversight and continuing ed issues).

Here is a video example of what is being taught as a medical acupuncture treatment strategy: “Advanced Functional Assessment of Musculoskeletal Problems” http://www.acupunctureacademy.ca/

However, as mentioned in earlier posts, such superficial treatments may help, but if an underlying imbalance and/or blood stasis condition is not addressed, chances of resolving musculoskeletal problems will decline markedly. Not wanting their patient to continue to suffer, and probably very frustrated, an MD might feel the only possible further solution would be pharmaceutical and/or surgical (I imagine not even thinking to refer out to an L.Ac.!).

Those of us who are trained to think in TCM terms have many other tools to treat musculoskeletal problems (as in this video), for example: traditional acupuncture diagnosis, cupping, direct and indirect moxa, tui na, Chinese medicinal herbal formulas, bleeding techniques, gwa sha, various electro-acupuncture, topical herbal salves, auricular acupuncture, intradermal tacks, Japanese ion pumping cord techniques, hara palpation and much much more.

The Three Stages of Traumatic Injury
http://www.acupuncturetoday.com/mpacms/at/article.php?id=32231&no_paginate=true&no_b=true

A Ph.D. has no relevance to acupuncture results. Writing papers has no relevance to treating patients.

Most primary medical conditions are so easy to treat it’s ridiculous.

The hard thing is having insurance suck peoples resources dry and making them believe that if it’s not covered they should choose bad medicine (by which I mean that (mostly) garbage called allopathy.

I don’t want to work alongside MD’s even though I like them as people. Why? It’s ethically horrifying to not speak up when they give for example, Previcid, instead of simply telling the body to adjust acid production and all the other good things that happen when the spleen – digestive complex is tweaked along with balancing all systems in the body with acu.

Oh yeah, I forgot, first you send them to a specialist who only deals in stomachs and intestines.. Ha! A specialist? Dear doc, it’s a spleen def, damp heat or other phenomenon you’ve never heard of. And while you were reading this we fixed it. It’s all Whack-A-Mole to them.

Most of the drugs suck and worse cause severe side effects. Patients come in having not had peristalsis for two years after taking Effexor (just one of many examples).

For others their insurance pays $ thousands each month for Imitrex injections and yet 3 treatments with acu (and advanced hands-on tissue reprocessing) and there is no pain (typical). And it stays gone!

Oh yeah, thanks a bunch for addicting so many people to Oxycontin and failed surgeries. When I get to L.A. I’ll be treating a woman who had metal rods installed from hip to cranium and then.. had “the hardware replaced” and continues to have the same original pain it was meant to fix. Why? Because most pain comes from soft-tissue and most back and neck surgeries fail miserably, largely for that reason. Surgeons already know this but they can do what they like. How lovely. (Yes I’ve digressed but you saw this coming)! And that’s just one case, if you saw the video of these fifty patients coming up it’s horrifying what they’ve been through, medically!

Years ago when I treated the chief medical officer for Pfizer (and he said I can retell the story) he had a notepad that said “Feldene, for when your arthritis hurts”.

I said why not just say “Feldene for when you want a bleeding ulcer” and he replied “Tom you should know all the allergic deaths we’ve had”.

Allopaths prescribe whatever crap the pharms feed them. Many thanks to the most ethical of them however most only refer to acus after they’ve trashed the patient for a few years. Others pretend acupuncture capability and don’t deliver results. The very most ethical allopath would never treat asthma, hot flashes, digestion – GURDS, reflux, post-stroke, etc.

NEVER. Because their medicine is garbage for most primary medical problems and acupuncture properly performed works fabulously.

With their poor results, MD’s wouldn’t practice primary western medicine at all. So perhaps it is the most benevolent who try to practice acupuncture but for most their results are not good and their patients are not told of their deficit – lack of expertise and training.

By the way, I didn’t dream this. After well over 60,000 treatments I’ve heard the patients and they are frustrated by all this, it’s based on their experiences.

Why would practicing a poorly performing medicine (allopathy) pre-qualify an MD to become an acupuncturist?

Western doctors could do a good job of screening for serious medical conditions that must have urgent intervention and then back off and let (most) acus easily eliminate health problems rather than turn them into years of pharms and b.s. results.

How often does someone come into my office and say they’ve had years of drugs, tests, operations and therapy with no results? Every clinic day.

How often do they marvel at the results we achieve with acu and advanced hands-on? Every clinic day. I have a ton of videos of before and after as videos speak much louder than oral claims or studies using “technicians” to do the needling.

We need a medical revolution with MD’s playing a tiny role as screeners and doing specialty meds. By that I don’t mean removing gall bladders and tonsils unnecessarily but monitoring and treating malignancies, saving accident patients in ER’s and other conditions/treatment that prove themselves by a real standard… results!

Please read Dr. Abrams – Overdosed America where he points out that most drugs don’t do what they say and most are incorrectly and/or over-prescribed per the actual supporting pharm studies. Yum!

Other than that I have no opinion.

P.s. In my upcoming series I’ll have an MD in the coat closet bound and gagged and I’ll say “hey, we told you, first do no harm” and then I’ll send in a face-painter to keep things delightful!

And for the person who was not an acupuncturist who visited here? Good news. You’re almost as qualified as a “Certifed MD Acupuncturist” to treat patients… do you have a video player? Well in a few weekends…..

So thank you for making this site available to us all, even when acupuncture schools have started “training” MD’s and people get angry because they hit the lotto and have MD “friends” that they are afraid they may lose if one reads these posts. Here’s your emoticons so you’ll know I”m not angry, just animated: <:-0~

1. Have you not realized what this whole website is about? “Not all acupuncturists are created equal” is the by-line.

2. “Hugo’s anger” may just be your subsumed projections (“My anger”). You have no way of verifying my emotions, and I would ask that you be careful, especially in the dangerous world of type-written conversation where no facial or tonal expression exists. Try and stick to the facts. This is simple netiquette.

3. Please review the nature and structure of ad hominem attacks here: http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/person.html You will find that you are ignoring my commentary and factual presentations in favour of focussing on your perceptions of my emotional state.

4. For a good primer on this topic, please review a citation I have already posted above:
Which Medicine? Whose Standard? Critical Reflections on medical integration in China (Fan, Holliday 2008)

Thanks,
Hugo