Happy Holidays to all of you in the acupuncture profession. These greetings extend to your families and staff personnel. It seems as this year has gone by so fast. It surely was the year of the rabbit.
I want to extend my thanks to all of the writers who have shared their thoughts and information throughout the pages of Acupuncture Today this past year. A great big thank you to all of the vendors and advertisers who have supported both the publication and the profession with their gererosity and support during this past year and thanks to our readers. I trust that you found the information interesting and helpful.
This past year has been filled with many interesting events. Here is a recap of a few of those events, along with some new exciting updates from the profession.
AAAOM Evaluation Complete
AAAOM has conducted and completed an Economic Evaluation in Acupuncture: Past and Future. It can be downloaded from their website www.aaaomonline.org. It is filled with information useful when talking about the cost savings of acupuncture. This information can be used in the discussion of essential benefits, which are planned to be included in the new healthcare reform package presented by President Barack Obama.
Scholarship Winners
Morie West, owner of ACUclaims, the largest billing company for acupuncture insurance billing in the United States, has just won an academic scholarship for the Management Development Program taught through the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern Califiornia. Morie is a current board of directors member of the AAAOM.
Two SCU Students were also awarded full scholarships from the Chinese government Traditional Chinese Medicine PhD Program. Donna Winges and Dr. Jeremy Summer, April 2011 graduate students in the Master of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine program, were recently awarded full scholarships from the Chinese government for the Doctoral Degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine. In September they started their study at the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine (BUCM) in China. SCU is the only Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine University in California that is officially recognized by the Chinese Department of Education as a Higher Education Institute. These two graduate students are the only California recipients of Chinese Government TCM Scholarship Program.
More Great News From SCU
SCU Awarded a $77,814 Grant from the Department of Health & Human Services for Scholarships for Disadvantaged Students. SCU Recognized by the Chronicles of Higher Education as "2011 Great Colleges to Work For." The results, released in The Chronicle's fourth annual report on The Academic Workplace, are based on a survey of nearly 44,000 employees at 310 colleges and universities.In all, only 111 of the 310 institutions achieved "Great College to Work For" recognition for specific best practices and policies. Results are reported for small, medium, and large colleges and universities with SCU included among the elite 86 recognized 4-year Institutions. SCU employees rated the institution highly enough to be recognized and honored in the following categories: Collaborative Governance, Job Satisfaction, Work/Life Balance and Confidence in Senior Leadership.
News on ICD-11
ICTM diagnostic codes have been sent to Stanford University and are being integrated with the ICD-11 codes. Dr. Mark Musen is overseeing the project for WHO and Stanford University. In a recent meeting with him, we had a long discussion about acupuncture and Asian medicine and the great benefits is has produced in many patients around the world. There is still time for you to donate toward the goal of $300,00.00 that the US AOM community is raising for the ICTM diagnostic code project. I thank you in advance for your donation.
Funds for Japan
The Toyohari Association of North America raised $14,720 in emergency funds for acupuncture colleagues after the 7.0 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear reactor disasters in the Sendai Region of Japan, which resulted in over 23,000 people dead and missing. Three Toyohari members of the Miyagi Branch in Japan lost their homes and five members homes were damaged. It will take a long time to recover from such a disaster. Donations can continue to be made via PayPal at: www.toyohari.org/Japan_Donation.htm.
International Classification of Public Safety
I recently attended the plenary session of the International Classification of Public Safety. This is a new classification being sponsored by the World Health Organization. Both Western and Traditional Medicine will be on equal par in this classifiacation dealing with public health, welfare and safety. More information to come in the upcoming months.
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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