The Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine has finalized a program naming policy recognizing & accrediting only these entry-level and advanced-practice doctoral programs as of Jan. 1, 2022:
1. Entry-Level Programs
A. Necessary for licensure and national certification in acupuncture
B. Necessary for professional licensure in acupuncture that includes Chinese herbal medicine and/or
national certification in Chinese herbology
2. Advanced-Practice Doctoral-Level Programs
ACAOM adopted the policy at its February 2020 semi-annual meeting in response to public comments regarding the now-retired ACAOM Degree Structure and Naming Convention Policy, with the new policy effective March 6, 2020.
In its Rationale for Program Naming position paper, issued in conjunction with the naming policy, the commission states: "There is longstanding confusion by the general public, patients, and other healthcare and insurance providers about the various levels of acupuncture and Oriental medicine (AOM) training, related degree titles, and associated terminology. ... [ACAOM] believes that well-understood and consistently applied degree titles will help eliminate this confusion and ultimately contribute to growth and recognition of the AOM profession."
Fertility acupuncture sometimes gets presented as a narrow protocol: a handful of reproductive points applied uniformly across patients. What this case reinforced for me: The most powerful work happens when we read the whole picture. The hormone data, the constitutional tendency, the sleep, the digestion, and the menstrual pattern, so we can treat the environment the ovaries live inside.
Mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) affects more than 15% of the U.S. population but evades most practitioners’ radar. Just five years ago, it wasn’t even on my radar, despite already having 20 years of experience as a clinician at that time. The more I dug (similar to leaky gut and post-COVID syndrome), the more I found my patients were suffering from this disorder.
The motivation behind our practice of medicine is important, impacting not just our experience but also the experiences of those we treat. It is perhaps for this reason that the aspiration to help not just some, but all beings heal, has historically been an important part of the medical tradition. To explain this, we need to consider how medicine is interwoven with other social domains.