The Acupuncture Poll's question for July 2004 was:
How well did the education and training you received in school prepare you to practice acupuncture?
Results are as follows:
These results are based upon 874 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. Some comments have been edited for brevity.
The training and education I received were above average: I went to one of the most well-known schools in California and feel that my education in TCM was very good but was lacking in several areas that are required to be successful in private practice. There was not enough class work in the areas of insurance billing, collections, business management, and legal issues related to the profession. I hope that in the future more programs take these areas seriously, as it no surprise that only 25% of the TCM graduates are still in practice after five years.
The training and education I received were excellent: My training program was excellent, and I felt I was fully prepared for professional practice upon graduation. No complaints.
The training and education I received were below average: After receiving education in the field of Western medicine, I felt that the courses taught in the Oriental medicine program were taught with less than qualified instructors - instructors, but not necessarily teachers.
The training and education I received were excellent: The actual TCM training was great (although I think pulse diagnosis needed to be taught more thoroughly, in a more experiential manner). The longer I'm out of school and in a successful practice, the better I can look back and appreciate just how well indeed I was taught. My one complaint is that I wish we had been given more (some!) exposure to business and marketing practices. What a hard learning-by-doing it's been!
A student stands over a patient, needle poised. They have a “perfect” prescription: a textbook combination of points harvested from a lecture slide on chronic lower back pain. But as the needle meets the skin, the student hesitates - the symptom of a quiet habit that has taken hold of our profession. We routinely say we “prescribe” points. It sounds efficient. It echoes the authority of biomedical culture and fits neatly into the insurance field. But vocabulary is never neutral; repeated long enough, it dictates behavior.
Acupuncture can be highly effective in cases of nasal congestion so common in allergy presentations; so much so that I often treat such issues using acupuncture protocols alone. In cases of seasonal allergies with highly predictable causes such as obvious elevations of environmental allergens, I use a skeleton acupuncture prescription that can easily be fleshed out to target potential underlying patterns and effectively customized to the patient.
The field of acupuncture in the U.S. continues to grow in visibility, patient demand and clinical effectiveness. Yet behind the curtain, many acupuncturists are quietly struggling to keep their doors open. While the profession is rooted in centuries of healing tradition, modern economic pressures – particularly those driven by insurance limitations, low reimbursement rates and job-market saturation – are making it increasingly difficult for licensed acupuncturists to thrive.
