Acupuncture Today columnist Gregory Ross has been named the 2011 Gold Medalist for Best Contributed Column in the prestigious Western Regional Azbee Awards of Excellence competition by the American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE).
ASBPE is the nation's largest organization for business-to-business publications and drew hundreds of entries in both editorial and graphics categories.
The award was for Ross' "Not The Emperor's Acupuncturist" columns. Also named in the award were Associate Editor Tina Beychok and Editor-in-Chief Ramon G. McLeod.
Ross' columns focused on his work as a public health acupuncturist who he treated indigent substance abuse patients at one of the toughest hospitals in the U.S. "Greg's columns were wrenching, heartwarming, personal and, always, authentic accounts of his work with this very difficult clientele," McLeod said. "Always professional in his approach, Greg has a rare ability to make real a world that is alien to most people...all the while respecting both the patients he describes and the peers who read his accounts.
"Unfortunately, changes in Greg's life have made it impossible to continue with us for now, and he is sorely missed. We look forward to his return," McLeod said.
Besides the award to Ross, MPA Media's Massage Today has been named the Silver Medalist for Investigative Reporting in the National Azbee Awards. The national award was for reporting on the political machinations and questionable data that went into a California anti-prostitution law targeting massage therapists.
As a direct result of the series of stories on the now infamous AB1822, the law was effectively gutted and rewritten. The articles were edited and written by Associate Editor Christie Bondurant and Editor-in-Chief Ramon G. McLeod.
Massage Today also won a Silver Medal in ASBPE's Western Regional Azbees for Investigative Reporting on the collapse of the International Massage Association, a major player in the massage insurance industry. Those stories were also written and edited by Bondurant and McLeod.
The regional awards were announced at the end of July. The national awards were announced in early August 2011.
Chronic pain afflicts over 20% of the adult population. Sadly, most MDs have essentially no education in treating pain, beyond offering a few toxic medications. Then they tend to steer people with pain away from those health practitioners who are trained. This puts the acupuncture community on the front lines for addressing this epidemic.
When the body is going through a stressful event, the sympathetic system is activated. This activation will help the body with a life-threatening situation. If this state is activated for prolonged periods of time, it starts to consume energy. These traumatic events that generate stressors in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) will eventually become internalized.
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One of the things that makes acupuncture so difficult to measure is that the medicine actually does contain some esoteric aspects. There have been numerous studies that demonstrate the neurochemical reasoning behind why acupuncture points stimulate the autonomic nervous system to enact change However, not all the benefits of TCM can easily be measured by randomized, controlled trials. But does that make them fundamentally and definitively untrue?
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