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On Oct. 1, 2007, the Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (ACAOM) released for public comment the first draft of proposed First-Professional Doctoral Accreditation Standards, which were developed by the ACAOM Doctoral Task Force.

Chinese medicine is filled with images of “The Great Physician.” Mostly a mythical entity, the good doctor is usually depicted as a wise and humble man, filled with compassion for his fellow creatures, while employing effective and often mysterious methods to cure them. He knows more than he says, yet…

Your question is not typical, but is certainly reasonable for a patient with this presentation, as it will be more difficult and require much more time, effort and expertise to deliver your acupuncture service. You are correct in your assessment of acupuncture codes, the requirement for reinsertion and the fact…

Profession Celebrates Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine Day On Oct. 24, 2007, the profession marked the fifth annual Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine Day. SCU College of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine Welcomes New Faculty Southern California University of Health Sciences (SCU) has appointed three new faculty members to its College of Acupuncture…

The dual quest for longevity and beauty began some 5,000 years ago with the Chinese. It was said that the great Emperor Shih-Huang-ti of the imperial Ch’in dynasty was on an unending quest to defy death when faced with the truth of his own mortality. During his reign, messengers and…

I was recently nominated for inclusion in the American Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (AAAOM) Historical Leaders in Oriental Medicine project. This project will commemorate the 25 th anniversary of the organization and the historical progression of Oriental medicine in the United States. What follows are my answers (excerpted)…

Wen dan tang (Warm the Gallbladder decoction) is a very popular and well-known formula in treating the symptoms of dizziness, vertigo, nausea/vomiting, insomnia, palpitation and anxiety caused by phlegm heat. The name of the formula and the indications are frequently confused because ” wen ” means “warming.” However, the indications…

I read with interest Bob Flaws’ recent piece on the frequency of acupuncture treatment. It occurs to me that the frequency of treatment necessary to be effective will differ greatly, given the perspective from which one views treatment and the skills of the practitioner. I have practiced full time for…

In my last article, I examined menstruation from the TCM perspective. Here, we are going to break down the cycle further and look at how TCM views each part of the cycle. The goal of this is to better understand what is happening physiologically from a TCM perspective, so we…

Individuals fall out of the amniotic sea and emerge into this world of duality. We transform from being physically connected to the source while exchanging processed nutrients, to a state where we must commit to processing our own interactions with the world. Yet, if the fetus passes urine or stools…

We at Acupuncture Today wish you the happiest of holidays and a prosperous new year. I would like to thank our columnists and contributors, who have written so many words of wisdom and education this past year. The acupuncture and Oriental medicine community has used much of this information in…

Hopeful would-be California acupuncture licensees got a shock on Saturday, Sept. 8, 2007, when they opened letters from the California Acupuncture Board just over a month after they’d taken the grueling California acupuncture licensing exam. Instead of indicating whether they had passed the exam, the California Acupuncture Board told them…

One of the biggest gold standards for efficacy in scientific research is the double-blind study. When both patients and practitioners are blinded to treatment method, there can be no bias from expectation or attitude. While there have been a number of well-designed, single-blind acupuncture studies in which the patient was…

The 25 th anniversary of acupuncture and Oriental medicine as an organized profession in the United States was celebrated in Portland, Ore., at the annual AAAOM Conference and Expo. The anniversary was shared by the AAAOM, ACAOM, CCAOM and NCCAOM.

This past year has been an eventful one for the AAAOM - beginning, of course, with the rebirth of the organization in January 2007, when the AAOM and the AOM announced they would begin operating as a single entity after 14 years. Recently, AAAOM President Leslie McGee, RN, LAc, took…

Oriental medical practitioners evaluate by asking, looking, listening and even smelling the patient. The signs and symptoms derived from these methods are indicators of disharmonies of the patient’s qi dynamic. When considering that signs and symptoms provide an indirect understanding of the patient’s qi dynamic, the question arises if we,…

I have probably one of the toughest jobs in medicine. I am a small-town acupuncturist. I was unprepared for small-town acupuncture at first. The idea had never even crossed my mind. No one taught me about it in school, and much of the practice advice I read in the journals…

The following is an interview with Dr. Diane Cridennda, leading specialist in the integrative field of fertility and TCM. I had the opportunity to meet with her in her office in Colorado Springs, Colo. Thank you, Diane, for your cutting-edge work in this field!

In 1970, on my return to civilian duty, having served in the U.S. Army as a combat medic, I became one of the first newly formed paramedics in the nation while I was trying to earn enough money to afford to enter into practice. As a result of my interest…

There is a curiosity in Western science regarding Chinese medicinal diagnosis of, and treatment for, urinary bladder stones, a very painful condition affecting many Americans. Since the discovery of lithotripsy (breaking down a calculus in the urinary system into pieces small enough to be washed out), the profession of urology…