Expanding the Understanding and Practice of Medical Acupuncture
— By Mitch Elkiss, DO, FAAMA
In 1972, I enrolled in a correspondence course through the North American Academy of Acupuncture in Vancouver, Canada. I was attracted to the idea of the “superior physician.” When I began medical school in 1974 at Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine, I sought out acupuncture experiences with my elective time and was rewarded with a variety of clinical experiences. From auricular stapling with electrical tonification, neuroanatomic technique of ‘poke them where it hurts’, and the most advanced acupuncture techniques on horses at the Veterinary Hospital in the context of adjunctive surgical analgesia. Thus began my lifelong pursuit of studying the role of East Asian Medicine in today’s contemporary, integrative practices.
There is a reason I write about this. For the past several years, I have been hearing from more individuals who want to start programs, medical schools that want to start programs, students within programs that want programs started, and different idealized visions of the next evolution of medical acupuncture. In this vision, students in medical schools will be introduced to the basic and clinical sciences behind the practice of acupuncture. This will begin in their first years and will lead to clinical sessions where they will learn some basic auricular treatments and safe default initial treatments. By the end of their second year or at the beginning of their third year they will be able to use these tools in appropriately designated clinics where they can be supervised. Imagine eager young medical students with tools at their disposal for helping with patient’s complaints like pain, insomnia, stress, or anxiety. Maybe this represents an elective track until demand for the training grows. At graduation, these students could apply to one of the established comprehensive programs in medical acupuncture. Or they could continue to cobble their own path of professional development. It would feed our programs, our AAMA events, and our vision for Medical Acupuncture.
The nature of learning medical acupuncture is based upon the fact that we all have obtained biomedical training before tackling the formal study of acupuncture. Our brains have already been “ruined” by the Western paradigm. Therefore, our study must be more intentional and deliberate. We can open our study of the canon of Eastern medical knowledge at any time in our life but must be willing to invest a lifetime of study, learning, thinking, and teaching this material to allow its full worth to be realized.
