Why so many aren't practicing after 5 yrs....

[Guest guest]

I quoted a statistic about 5 posts ago regarding the high failure rate of

acupuncture practices. The statistic is, " 79% of acupuncturists are not

practicing within 5 years of graduation. " Sorry, I can't give the actual

source. It was read to me in a class about 6 months after I graduated and

it scared me to death. Since there was no other field that interested me

or that I was trained for anymore, I absolutely had to make this work, come

hell or high water.

 

 

 

Over the years I've thought about this statistic and have thought about why

it might be that there's such a high number of non-starters. I pondered my

own class. I think that perhaps about 35% or so of my class (1997) is

practicing, although I don't know that for certain. I intimated before that

people failed because they couldn't do business. After thinking about it,

though, I realized that probably 10% of my class never really intended to

practice. A couple of them just went to school for the fun of it. One

wanted to practice out of his van driving up and down the west coast. Some

didn't have the people skills to get repeat business despite doing well on

the exams. We can't really compare ourselves to traditional (western)

practitioners, though. Think about MDs, or PTs, or DDSs, or RNs. How many

of them HAVE to be self-employed because there are no jobs in their fields?

Probably none. It's rare to find a renegade western practitioner out there

on his/her own. Nearly all western practitioners are employed, the

complications of business removed from their hands. We are not in that

boat. How many " jobs " exist for acupuncturists? I wish I had that

statistic.

 

 

 

So, probably the 21% that do survive the 5-year mark is not much different

than would be for any other field that required entrepreneurship. Perhaps

we should be proud??

 

 

 

It sure would've been nice, however, to have been fully aware of this prior

to attending school and taking out huge student loans. In a perfect world,

I would expect the schools to divulge this information. But then, schools

are a business and their job is to sell tuition and degrees, not be the

baby-sitter to a profession (or should it be?).

 

 

 

Thoughts?

 

 

 

Barbara

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

This is a very good point. The biomedical healthcare industry has

transformed MD's and other health care workers into technicians and

employees from independent health care providers. Paul Unschuld

makes a strong case in his recent book " What is Medicine? " (in

process of being translated from German to English). His criteria

for a physician (as opposed to technician) is control of fees by the

profession, source of information, and decision making in diagnosis

and treatment. Fees and approval for treatment are decided largely

by insurance companies and HMO's, and information is largely supplied

by the sciences, such as pharmacology, organic chemistry, etc., which

are independent of the biomedical profession. Most Western

healthcare providers work for large corporations, whether HMO's,

hospital chains or group practices.

 

While we are largely 'outsiders' in the CM field, with consequences

for income status, there are advantages if we want to use them.

There is a much larger degree of independence, but one has to be much

more self-motivated to succeed. We still control our information

sources (the Chinese medical literature), but how many of us truly

take full advantage of this resource?

 

 

On Jan 26, 2007, at 3:13 PM, Barbara Beale wrote:

 

> We can't really compare ourselves to traditional (western)

> practitioners, though. Think about MDs, or PTs, or DDSs, or RNs.

> How many

> of them HAVE to be self-employed because there are no jobs in their

> fields?

> Probably none. It's rare to find a renegade western practitioner

> out there

> on his/her own. Nearly all western practitioners are employed, the

> complications of business removed from their hands. We are not in that

> boat. How many " jobs " exist for acupuncturists? I wish I had that

> statistic.

>

> So, probably the 21% that do survive the 5-year mark is not much

> different

> than would be for any other field that required entrepreneurship.

> Perhaps

> we should be proud??

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Mr. Rosenberg,

 

> While we are largely 'outsiders' in the CM field, with consequences

> for income status, there are advantages if we want to use them.

> There is a much larger degree of independence, but one has to be

> much

> more self-motivated to succeed. We still control our information

> sources (the Chinese medical literature), but how many of us truly

> take full advantage of this resource?

 

Excellent points!

 

Kind regards,

 

Thomas Sorensen

 

 

Chinese Medicine , " "

<zrosenbe wrote:

>

> This is a very good point. The biomedical healthcare industry has

> transformed MD's and other health care workers into technicians and

> employees from independent health care providers. Paul Unschuld

> makes a strong case in his recent book " What is Medicine? " (in

> process of being translated from German to English). His criteria

> for a physician (as opposed to technician) is control of fees by the

> profession, source of information, and decision making in diagnosis

> and treatment. Fees and approval for treatment are decided largely

> by insurance companies and HMO's, and information is largely supplied

> by the sciences, such as pharmacology, organic chemistry, etc., which

> are independent of the biomedical profession. Most Western

> healthcare providers work for large corporations, whether HMO's,

> hospital chains or group practices.

>

> While we are largely 'outsiders' in the CM field, with consequences

> for income status, there are advantages if we want to use them.

> There is a much larger degree of independence, but one has to be much

> more self-motivated to succeed. We still control our information

> sources (the Chinese medical literature), but how many of us truly

> take full advantage of this resource?

>

>

> On Jan 26, 2007, at 3:13 PM, Barbara Beale wrote:

>

> > We can't really compare ourselves to traditional (western)

> > practitioners, though. Think about MDs, or PTs, or DDSs, or RNs.

> > How many

> > of them HAVE to be self-employed because there are no jobs in their

> > fields?

> > Probably none. It's rare to find a renegade western practitioner

> > out there

> > on his/her own. Nearly all western practitioners are employed, the

> > complications of business removed from their hands. We are not in that

> > boat. How many " jobs " exist for acupuncturists? I wish I had that

> > statistic.

> >

> > So, probably the 21% that do survive the 5-year mark is not much

> > different

> > than would be for any other field that required entrepreneurship.

> > Perhaps

> > we should be proud??

>

>

>

>