Licensed Acupuncturist
or
MD with "Medical Acupuncture"
Training?
Whom should you choose to treat you?
By Dr. Marilyn Walkey, MD,
LAc
I have a problem with double standards. I don't believe
in them, and I don't think that they should apply to any field of health care. At the present time,
Oregon State law requires acupuncturists to obtain a license to perform
acupuncture.
As part of our training, we devote 3-4 years to obtaining a
postgraduate education, as well as over 1000 hours of observation and supervised clinical training.
We are required during that training to begin to understand and master a complex science of healing which has been
in existence for over two thousand years.
We attend many hours of lectures from professors of various
subspecialties with wide-ranging experience and wealth of knowledge. We read widely varying textbooks from ancient
to modern.
We receive detailed training in the methods of differential diagnosis, and treatment
planning.
We have years of hands-on experience on each other and more
than 2 years of needling instruction. We begin to leave the left-brain thinking behind, and start to think in terms
of yin and yang. This process allows us to approach complex and chronic disease with new ways of healing, very
often after western medical doctors have given up hope.
Now about that double standard: presently in the State of
Oregon, medical doctors can perform acupuncture with no training whatsoever. This is a travesty to our
profession.
It assumes that MD's have
some sort of magical ability to discern our medicine with no training whatsoever.
This law must change. MD's must be held to the same exact standard as every other healthcare professional who
wishes to practice acupuncture.
At present, Oregon State law requires that MD's be able to
"safely and competently" practice medicine in order to have an active medical
license.
I don't believe that with zero hours of training, that MD's
can safely and competently practice acupuncture.
As a medical doctor who attended and passed a "medical
acupuncture" course, I know what that training entails. When I completed it, I had seen 70 videotapes, all given by
one MD instructor.
I had been to 5 days of lecture, and needled 3 people, all
of them other MD's attending the course. I had not treated one patient on my
own.
I did not know how to make a Chinese Medical diagnosis,
develop a treatment plan, analyze pulse, evaluate tongue.
Furthermore, I had no idea of what acupuncture &
Chinese herbs could actually do, and therefore I didn't know when to send patients to a licensed
acupuncturist.
I don't believe that MD's with 300 hours of
"medical acupuncture" training can safely and competently practice
acupuncture.
Hawaii is the only state which holds physicians to the same
standard as others wishing to practice acupuncture. Our profession is at a
crossroads.
We must speak up to those in
authority and protect the people of Oregon against MD's who are untrained or undertrained in
acupuncture.
All healthcare professionals should be held to the same
standard in order to protect the people of Oregon and insure that all those who receive acupuncture are treated
"safely and competently".
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