AOM Doctoral degree

[Guest guest]

Taken from the AAOM enewsletter dated 29/03/04.

 

ACAOM'S DOCTORAL TASK FORCE:

 

AAOM Members - As many of you may know, ACAOM has been considering a

variety of strategies to help move education in our profession

towards an entry-level-doctoral degree. As part of ACAOM's

commitment to a measured process that includes all of the various

voices in the AOM community - educators, practitioners, regulators,

and the public - ACAOM has formed a Task Force to investigate the

First Professional Doctoral degree in AOM.

 

As a part of the AAOM's commitment to the profession, and in

accordance with our mission to protect and promote the integrity of

the profession, we are actively participating in ACAOM's Doctoral

Task Force. The Task Force held the first meeting on March 13 and

14. As participants in the Task Force's efforts, we look forward

to providing the input from our State associations and our member

practitioners in order to explore the transitional process towards

implementing a First Professional Doctoral degree.

 

The members of the AAOM Task Force include: Gene Bruno, AAOM

President and practitioner from Oregon; Kevin Ergil, Dean of AOM

program at Touro College, New York; Howard Kong, CSOMA President and

practitioner from California; Will Morris, AAOM Director and Dean of

Emperor's College and practitioner from California; Bill Prensky,

Founder of AOM program at Mercy College, N.Y., and practitioner from

New York.

 

 

FIRST STATEMENT BY ACAOM'S DOCTORAL TASK FORCE

As announced previously, the Accreditation Commission for

Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (ACAOM) has embarked on a process

to determine the level of support within the profession for the

development of a first-professional doctorate degree. In the spirit

of supporting an ongoing deliberative process, ACAOM recently

convened a Doctoral Task Force comprised of representatives of all

the profession's key stakeholders including educators,

practitioners, and regulators. The Task Force had its first meeting

in Las Vegas, NV in March 2004.

 

The following vision statement and guiding principles were formally

adopted by the Doctoral Task Force and have been subsequently

endorsed by the Commission. The statement and principles will help

to shape the course of future discussions as the Task Force works to

analyze the implications for the AOM profession of a potential

transition from Master's to doctoral education as the first

professional degree for the profession. As an integral part of the

Task Force's recommendations relative to implementing the vision

statement, the Task Force is recommending that ACAOM seek a change

of scope in its recognition by the US Department of Education from

accrediting Master's Degree and Master's level diploma programs in

AOM to accrediting the AOM curriculum and allowing programs to seek

state authorization to grant either Master's or Doctoral degrees

based on that program of study. This request is currently under

review by the Commission.

 

Terry Courtney, MPH, L.Ac.

Chair, ACAOM

 

 

TASK FORCE STATEMENT

We are considering the likelihood that our profession will migrate

through a transitional process towards implementing a First

Professional Doctoral degree. To understand this progression it is

important to understand the distinction between First Professional

Doctorates and other Doctoral degrees. These distinctions include:

 

A Professional Doctorate is different from an Academic Doctorate.

 

First Professional Doctorates are:

 

• Entry level by definition.

 

• Not laddered degrees. They are not advanced degrees dependent

upon prior degree acquisition. Rather they are the first and only

degree required for practice of a profession.

 

• Not intended to represent significant contributions to the

science and body of knowledge (as is, for example, an academic

Ph.D.) but rather intended to represent acquisition of the necessary

skills for the practice of a profession.

 

We undertake to help facilitate this process should it occur

according to the following six principles.

 

• Above all else, we will endeavor to do no harm.

 

• We will endeavor to bring all communities of interest and voices

in the AOM community into this process and through it together

without eliminating or excluding anyone.

 

• We will respect all voices in the field and all traditions in the

field.

 

• We will provide clear communication about our discussions and the

processes we propose to the entire community throughout our

discussions.

 

• We recognize that our current curriculum leading to the

professional degree in AOM and the competencies that they represent

support a valid First Professional Degree at both the current

masters and the proposed doctoral degree level.

 

• We recognize that content of curricula will continue to evolve,

as it always has, based upon the need to support new professional

roles which emerge for practitioners of AOM.

 

Task Force Organization Participants : American Association of

Oriental Medicine (AAOM), the Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine

Alliance (AOMA), Council of Colleges of Acupuncture and Oriental

Medicine (CCAOM), the Federation of Acupuncture and Oriental

Medicine Regulatory Agencies (FAOMRA), the National Federation of

Chinese TCM Associations (NFCTCMA), the World Federation of Chinese

Medicine Societies (WFCMS) and the Accreditation Commission for

Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (ACAOM).

 

 

Attilio