California standards

[Guest guest]

Is there anywhere i could look at the CA educational standards? How different

are they

from the regular ACAOM standards? Anyone ever do a survey of CA-trained

practitioners

in markets other than CA to see how well they fare economically? Just curious.

 

rh

[Guest guest]

Robert,

Some very good questions.

 

>Is there anywhere i could look at the CA educational standards?

The CA Acu board website has an online listing of reqs at

 

http://www.acupuncture.ca.gov/law_reg/art35.htm#1399436

 

How different are they different from the regular ACAOM standards?

You will have to check them out. The transfer student that I spoke with had

made a spread sheet (sorry but I deleted it) on her school and compared it

with the current CA standards. In some areas there was little difference

but in many others there was major difference. Some areas were completely

missing from the ACAOM program. One thing to also consider is that ACAOM is

now including western medical testing but few OM programs teach this info

(xrays, mri and lab tests).

 

Please bare in mind that this same program has been looking at getting CA

approval and some there think that it is an easy thing to do. I think not.

 

Anyone ever do a survey of CA-trained practitioners in markets other than CA

to see how well they fare economically?

Not sure of the rellevance of making such a comparison nor have I seen

anything on this as far as a study. It would be noteworthy to realize that

CA has a lot more utilization of acupuncture and little outside professional

competition (100 hr chiro acu cert) as well as a more progressive law (work

comp primarycare status). Making this type of comparison would be like the

proverbial apples to oranges thing.

 

Just curious.

 

It is good to be curious. Hope this answers some of your questions.

 

Mike W. Bowser, L Ac

[Guest guest]

Chinese Medicine , " mike Bowser "

<naturaldoc1@h...> wrote:

>> Anyone ever do a survey of CA-trained practitioners in markets other than CA

> to see how well they fare economically?

> Not sure of the rellevance of making such a comparison nor have I seen

> anything on this as far as a study.

 

i was rather thinking about CA-trained acupuncturists in markets outside of

California.

 

if the training is as vastly superior as you indicate, wouldn't one see also a

disparity in

income between CA-trained and non-CA-trained practitioners?

 

since treatment outcomes are difficult to measure, economic status of the

graduates

would be an obvious indicator of the superiority of the educational standards.

i'm

surprised the CA-approved schools haven't undertaken this, it would certainly be

an

incentive for people to choose their programs if the data came out on their

side.

[Guest guest]

Robert,

I hope my responses make sense.

 

>i was rather thinking about CA-trained acupuncturists in markets outside of

>California.

 

I know what you mean but think that there are simply too many other factors

that can influence this as well. They could include hours of practice

mgmt/marketing, business acumen, financial resources, employment ops, etc.

I would not see any rellevance in such a study with so many other possible

variables out there. In some states, like mine, we have outside competition

that like to mascarade as " LAc " , these DC have 100 hr only with no

supervised clinical internship. The Acu community here also lacks insurance

parity (this is the land of the HMO) and so this aspect is financially

hurting many of us here as well. We are under utilized, under paid, etc.

LAc's from CA might have the same outcomes as someone who is a local

graduate and this might be totally unrelated to their CA education. Few

schools actually put enough hours into understanding ethics/law, pratice

mgmt or marketing, which is really what the study would be about.

>

>if the training is as vastly superior as you indicate, wouldn't one see

>also a disparity in

>income between CA-trained and non-CA-trained practitioners?

 

Not necessarily due to the reasons above. There is much more to this

practice picture then simply your OM education. I see these as two

completely separate issues. For example, many of us may know of a

financially successful practitioner who they do not consider to be very good

and yet they are successful. Their focus is on making money, not on higher

level service, rare is the practice that provides both. Usually, we have

big, caring hearts more then big bank accounts.

>

>since treatment outcomes are difficult to measure, economic status of the

>graduates

>would be an obvious indicator of the superiority of the educational

>standards.

 

I would again disagree with you on this assumption as listed above.

 

 

i'm surprised the CA-approved schools haven't undertaken this, it would

certainly be an

incentive for people to choose their programs if the data came out on their

side.

 

I am not. I would much rather see a study on how many graduates are still

in practice after 5 years and at what level of activity. CA also seems to

be having issues with graduates coming out and then not finding " employment "

yet not really interested in running their own business. I am glad to see

that more hospital affiliations are being created and that a hospital

recruiter is now accepting cv for hospital employment of LAc (CA).

 

So, in the end, we have a long way to go with much disparity. I think that

if you practice in CA your pathway might be shortened due to all the work

previously done and the ops created from it. We have much to be thankful

for in CA and the rest of us have much more to think about as far as

practice ops.

 

Mike W. Bowser, L Ac

 

 

PS, I plan to return after my chiro graduation and become one of only a few

dually licensed professionals offering both models of healthcare to their

patients.