A Decade of Research
The 2007 Annual Conference of the Society for Acupuncture Research will be held at the University of Maryland in Baltimore November 8-11. The Status and Future of Acupuncture Research: 10 Years Post-NIH Consensus Conference will mark a decade of research since the November 1997 landmark report put out by a National Institutes of Health (NIH) consensus panel. The report verified clear evidence of acupuncture as an effective relief for postoperative and chemotherapy related nausea and vomiting, as well as nausea of pregnancy, and for postoperative dental pain. The 1997 report also states that acupuncture may be used as a stand alone or adjunct therapy for such conditions as drug addiction, stroke rehabilitation, menstrual cramps, carpal tunnel syndrome and asthma.
This year's conference will provide a variety of opportunities to learn more about acupuncture research, starting before the conference even kicks off with pre-conference workshops that focus on understanding the fundamentals of research in Oriental medicine for practitioners, educators and students new to the research field. During the conference, keynote speakers will discuss the past decade's progress in the scientific research of acupuncture, while examining opportunities and challenges in future studies; international speakers will cover three major topics including controlled clinical trials, basic science and critical methodological issues; as well as panel discussions and poster sessions evaluating key topics in acupuncture and Oriental medicine.
Students and post-doctoral fellows in acupuncture and Oriental medicine (AOM) who submitted scientific abstracts as of April 1 will present their research during the conference. These participant's abstracts in the areas of clinical research, basic science and research methodology along with their presentations will be eligible for a $1,000 Young Investigator Award. The National Acupuncture Foundation, National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (NCCAOM) and SAR will give a total of four awards based on originality, significance, methodology, validity and conclusions.
For registration or further information, visit the SAR Web site at www.acupunctureresearch.org.
AOM Organizations Meet
The leaders of eight national AOM organizations met on Saturday, March 10 in Columbia, Md., to discuss their respective work plans for the year, mutual collaboration and various issues of interest to each organization and the AOM and Asian bodywork therapy professions. This was the third consecutive year in which the Council of Colleges of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine convened to provide an opportunity for these AOM leaders to come together for dialogue in an informal and collegial setting.
The council was represented by Lixin Huang, MS (President), Catherine Niemiec, LAc, JD (Vice-President), Shen Ping Liang, LAc, PhD (Member-at-Large), Mark McKenzie, MOM, LAc, Dipl.Ac/CH (Member-at-Large), Elizabeth Goldblatt, PhD, MPA/HA (Immediate Past-President), and David Sale, JD, LLM (Executive Director).
Representatives from the other attending organizations were as follows (in alphabetical order by organization):
As was true of previous meetings of these eight organizations, this year's meeting was both productive and collegial. The meetings are valuable for the council in that the views of the other national organizations are taken into account when the council revises its strategic plan each spring. For some years, the council always has included an item in its strategic plan to work cooperatively with other national AOM organizations in furtherance of the council's primary mission of advancing AOM by promoting educational excellence in the field. The annual meetings of these AOM leaders contribute significantly to that purpose for the council and, more broadly, serve to enhance mutual understanding among all the participating organizations. The council believes that the cooperative and collegial spirit that pervades these meetings reflect an important contemporary trend toward greater unity of purpose among AOM leaders to the benefit not only of the respective organizations, but also for the larger profession.
Structured water (H3O2) can be considered a fourth state of water between liquid and solid. It has the hexagonal structure of ice; however, missing a critical bond, it behaves more like a gel than a solid, but retains some of its crystalline structure.
In the past five years of my clinical practice, I have seen an astonishing upsurge in the chronic use of proton-pump inhibitor (PPI) medications for the gastrointestinal issue diagnosed by allopathic medicine as GERD. It is not uncommon to encounter patients taking these prescriptions for five-plus years.
Working with chronically ill patients entails acknowledging the reality that not all patients will survive their diagnosis. Chinese medicine and acupuncture play a crucial role in palliative and end-of-life care, addressing medication and disease side effects, alleviating pain associated with death, reducing anxiety and stress, and helping patients find peace during the dying process.
