doctorate, etc.

[Guest guest]

Brian

 

Thanks for doing the comparisons. The truth is always out there IF we only

LOOK with our eyes and LISTEN with our ears instead of what most do....which is

to degrade that truth through their own jaded perception and illogical

opinions. Logic is one of the most important aspects of 'having an

opinion'....all

too often missing.

 

As to the books that have NEVER been translated - there are some 2000 written

in Ancient chinese and that speaks to another discussion as to WHO is

capable. Sorry - but for those who think one can go from English to modern

chiense

and then back to ancient chinese - it just does not bring forth the richness

that is compacted in the ancient pictograms. There are only a handful of those

who grew-up studying the ancient language and medicine (what I call organically)

and ONLY they can do the BEST translation. Hopefully some of them can be

convinced to work on it if not already doing so. Out of the 2000 books (Dr. Wu,

Boping) tells me there are about 500 that are most important. Additionally he

states that the depths of Chinese medicine has not yet been written in any books

- in modern chinese or english.

 

So those who would think they know-it-all......tch tch...there is not much

else to say. One cannot convince people who won't open their minds.

 

For all of the reasons Brian has posted.......our profession needs to follow

the basics. Bachelors (most likely in science) for entry into a TCM schoo and

a 4 year doctor of OM degree program with a residency.

 

And it would be great if all those undertarined practitioners.....try to stop

and think. This is NOT about them...it;s about the future. And as I tried to

say CLEARLY.....we hope that all lesser trained compared to a OMD degree (not

necessarily lesser competent) will be 'grand fathered' in, in some way - if

ONLY by title so they don;t feel left-out in any way. That can be done and has

been done in other professions including by the way - MDs - early on.

 

Richard Freiberg, DOM, DAc, NMD

Founder/Director AOMNC

<A HREF= " www.aomnc.com " >www.aomnc.com</A>

 

 

>

> I spent a while comparing:

>

> 1. medical acupuncturists to licensed acupuncturists,

> http://www.pulsemed.org/medicalacupuncture.htm

> 2. non-physician acupuncturists doing Chinese medicine to physicians doing

> Western medicine

> (sorry, no link)

> 3. non-physician acupuncturists doing Chinese medicine to chiro's...

> http://www.dcdoctor.com/pages/rightpages_allaboutchiro/education.html

>

> If you look at a chart of our educational hours, you'll see that we don't do

> the same number of hours that chiro's and Western physicians do. The need

> for more hours to reach the doctorate level makes sense to

> me just from that perspective. It wouldn't be fair to them to just give us

> doctorates for a Masters number of hours.

>

> But there are other reasons too...

>

> We can't fit more hours into the already crowded Masters level education.

> Yet:

>

> * We generally learn just one kind of acupuncture (zang-fu), and not others-

> japanese, tong, nan jing, five element (if you go to a 5E school, not sure

> if you only learn 5E acu or what), etc. We may get a survey or intro to

> others, that's all. Japanese acu was an elective and not covered by Fin Aid

> at PCOM.

>

> * Many acupuncturists are not learning Chinese herbal medicine in depth.

> Historically, CM has been mostly herbal. Here in the west, acupuncture gets

> the spotlight (See Unschuld and Scheid for history). How many

> acupuncturists can write a personalized raw herb rx for a pt. based on their

> pattern discrim, symptoms, etc.? Most rely on pre-formulated herbs because

> of time, under-education, not thinking it makes that much difference (I'm

> guessing about the reasons there)

>

> * We get minimal Western medical education- perhaps not enough to think in

> both paradigms- which is required if you want to refer out when you need to-

> some of the red flag sxs in WM are normal and ok in CM- in CA, we can order

> lab tests, etc., but if you want to be primary care like that, you have to

> educate yourself to a large extent, and your academic credentials won't

> reflect that.

>

> * We don't learn the classics- I don't think they're even all translated

> yet. Without translators, we won't get there. Without the classics, we're

> not even standing on the shoulders of the CM giants- we're just elementary

> educated... yet we still have questions and speculations... and no source to

> return to. Or we rely on those who come from China... it's messy. And

> there's a whole branch of CM integrating with WM in China, for which we have

> no books or articles translated.

>

> Those are a few areas off the top of my head in which we need more work, but

> there's no room in the Master's degree. So those are more reasons why a

> Doctoral degree.

>

> But I'll tell you what I'd really like to see:

>

> TCM HOSPITALS and RESIDENCIES where CM graduates get PAID just like in

> Western medicine.

>

> B