The challenges acupuncturists in America face and solutions

There may be many obstacles and challenges that exist when someone tries to run a business as an acupuncturist in America.

The first obstacle must be the fact that acupuncture is still largely foreign to many Americans. Although acupuncture is growing rapidly in popularity worldwide as alternative medicine, the efficacy is still unknown to most people in the US, who are mostly skeptical.

Even in Japan, my parents, who spent their youth during the post-war era in Japan under a huge influence of American culture, never had acupuncture in their lives. When they had physical pain, they went straight to the hospital seeking help from Western medicine. On the contrary, my grandmother totally relied on Oriental medicine, including moxibustion and Kampo - Japanese styles of Chinese herbal medicine. She had many burn scars from moxibustion on both sides of her spine.

For my parents, Oriental medicine was too old-fashioned, primitive, and unreliable, while Western medicine was more scientifically proven and trustworthy. They didn’t look for any kinds of alternative medicine until very end of their battle with terminal cancer. As a result, their children’s generation grew up without knowing acupuncture. I visited the acupuncturist’s office for the first time when I was mid 20’s due to my dance-related injury. If I had not been a dancer then, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to experiment for myself with acupuncture.

Many American people may have similar feelings as my parents had, especially those who live in small towns away from the big cities where people from diverse backgrounds share a multicultural ethnic environment. For Americans from rural areas, or those who have a preference for familiar styles of Western medical treatment, this needle-stick ancient Chinese therapy might look too primitive to try. Cultural discrimination is likely to play a role in the acceptance or rejection of acupuncture as an alternative medicine.

For a solution to this issue, first we have to convince the patients of the efficacy of acupuncture by using anatomical, pathological, and physiological explanations based on Western science, rather than explaining only with the theory of traditional Chinese medicine.

Also, to avoid fearfulness, we have to treat the patients with the least amount of pain. If we can convince one patient that acupuncture is not painful but very effective for their health issues, the patient may bring other patients by word of month.

When the patients become regular and comfortable with the needles, then we can use the theory of traditional Chinese medicine and the Oriental mythology more and more in the conversation. Acupuncture’s association with Oriental philosophy such as Taoism may appeal to some patients.

The other obstacle is the fact that it is difficult to get proper training in the US to be an excellent acupuncturist.

I recently had time to talk with Japanese acupuncturists living in Japan about how to improve skills after graduation. All they said was to find a master practitioner and to work and study under them as an apprentice for three to five years. Even after those years, if you feel your skill is not adequate enough to open your own office, you may find an another master and do the same thing for a few more years. They said that some take nearly 10 years before being ready to be independent.

“It is the life-long learning,” is what I heard from those Japanese acupuncturists. Their masters themselves also continued to learn from their own masters. There are frequent meetings of study groups and seminars, which are held regularly, in the various styles of acupuncture groups in Japan.

“The curriculum of American acupuncture schools is too shallow, just for passing the license exam,” I complained to them. They said that Japanese schools are the same. The real learning starts after graduation. That’s why they needed to find masters and study as an apprentice under their supervision. But in the US, there are very few opportunities available to find such masters who accept apprentices. 

After all, acupuncture is still new in Western countries. The numbers of study groups and seminars by master teachers are limited too. How can most American acupuncturists keep up and improve their skills? The only solution I have found is to try to utilize and maximize those opportunities, by joining the study groups, taking seminars, and finding master teachers worldwide to follow.

 

Anma (masseurs), circa 1885

“But in America, the acupuncturists are more respected than those in Japan, isn’t it true?” 

My Japanese acupuncturist friend told me a very interesting thing. She said that in Japan, acupuncture, which is traditionally a blind person’s profession along with Anma massage therapy, has been casually situated in every small town and relatively low in terms of treatment cost per patient. Because of this, acupuncturists tend to be lightly regarded by the public and seldom are respected as medical professionals except a few well-known masters. But in the US, acupuncturists are regarded as medical specialists like doctors, and some have an opportunity to work even in hospitals along with physicians.

I didn’t know what to say, but there must be some truth in it. So, I just wish that I could keep up my skills, achieving to a high level of treatment through life-long learning, and someday would like to be called “Sensei (Doctor/Master/Teacher)” by my patients with respect as a medical professional.

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