The Acupuncture Poll's question for May 2003 was:
"How effective is your state association in meeting the needs of the acupuncture and Oriental medicine profession in your state?"
Results are as follows:
These results are based upon 330 responses. As this is a voluntary, non-scientific survey, caution should be used in generalizing the results. Here is a sample of the comments made by those who took the survey and how they voted:
Very effective: I feel that [my state association] does a great job within the boundaries that it is forced to work. The fact is that it can only do what it can afford to do. In reality, it needs the support of the practitioners to fully function and in my opinion, most of the practitioners are either too cheap or too empathetic to even join a state organization, much less participate. We will never mean anything to the insurance companies, the medical association or the politicians until we are strongly united and have some financial strength.
Very ineffective: I live in Iowa. There are a handful of acupuncturists, but like most other things, we sit and wait for trends that develop on either coast to creep up on us.
Somewhat ineffective: The California state associations could be doing a much better job for the profession in the state if they would work to find common ground with the national organizations and school community. Bashing national organizations such as CCAOM, NCCAOM, the Alliance, ACAOM and the colleges on the CAOMA and CSOMA Web sites with statements of questionable accuracy doesn't help, and presents our state associations to the public as unprofessional, petty and ineffective. Nor does it help to take a hostile posture toward those groups. Just think how much more could be accomplished for the profession in California if the state associations, national organizations and the college community could find common ground and work together for the betterment of the profession. CAOMA, CSOMA and the other state associations have much more work to do in this regard. We should all expect much better from our state representatives.
For more information on the Acupuncture Poll, contact Acupuncture Today at editorial@acupuncturetoday.com.
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