The development of first professional doctorate degrees in Chinese medicine

on 02/19/2008 by Eric Grey in Community and Cultivation

chinese_medicine_doctorate I must confess that the issue of accreditation of programs, levels of education within the acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine profession(s) and all related issues sometimes evade my understanding. While the degree that I will get at the end of my training is a Masters of Science in Oriental Medicine, I will obtain a certification that will give me the title of Licensed Acupuncturists (LAc).

At this point, further education is possible in accredited DAOM (Doctorate in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine) but it brings with it no further licensure benefits. At this point, all Doctorate programs require the student to have their Masters degree and have some amount of clinical experience before they are considered for entry. The standards vary as to how much clinical experience is required. The Doctorate is clinically based and generally requires some amount of clinical research to be done.

NCNM, the school I attend in Portland, OR, has been working to create a first professional doctoral degree that focuses on Classical Chinese Medicine. I’m unclear as to whether other schools are seeking something similar. It’s been a long road, one that was started down long before I came to the school. Students, faculty, staff and community practitioners have been involved in the creation and refinement of the program.

Most of the students currently in the MSOM program had high hopes that ACAOM (the Chinese medicine accreditation organization) would create a set of standards for first professional doctorates in time for us to complete our “first professional doctorates.” To that end, we have been taking the extra coursework necessary for our proposed Doctorate program. Some of us have been quite active in the process, attending committee meetings and submitting comments to the ACAOM in support of a certain set of standards.

On February 8, ACAOM released their recommendation – which is essentially that they feel they can make no recommendation because of lack of consensus in the community. If you would like to read the official document, read it at ACAOM’s website. I’m unclear what, exactly, this means for our program at NCNM. Almost certainly those of us in our third or fourth year that were hoping to graduate on time with our Doctorate will not be able to do so. That’s not my biggest concern – I’m simply interested in understanding what the essential disagreement is in the community.

So, I would like to hear from my readers. What is your stance on First Professional Doctorates? What do you feel needs to be in place before a program like that goes through? Do you have other thoughts about how education and licensing works in the Chinese medicine profession in the United States? Let us know in the comments.

About Eric Grey

Hi - I'm the founder of Deepest Health. When I'm not writing here, you can find me reaching out to the Chinese Medicine community across the web and in my own backyard. I currently teach Chinese herbs at my alma mater, the National College of Natural Medicine. Additionally, I'm the founder of Watershed Community Wellness, a thriving local clinic in Southeast Portland in Oregon. No matter where I'm working, you'll find my focus on the Classical approach to Chinese medicine laced throughout everything I do.

View all posts by Eric Grey - Website: http://deepesthealth.com

Bonnie says:

02/19/2008

Back when I was in school and they were talking about the doctorate (almost a decade now) it was explained that we would follow the path of social workers, in that the Masters level candidate would be the worker bee and the Doctoral level candidate would be the teacher.

I don’t know what the arguments are in standards and who is blocking or what. If we offer Master’s level programs that are basic programs for practitioners, then the doctoral level should require something beyond that. As the original supposition is that these would be teachers, five years (as is standard in Oregon to supervise) seems a reasonable amount of time to have practiced before going for a doctorate.

I can make a lot of arguments for or against what ought to be studied. Right now none of the existing doctoral programs really look as if there is anything worth studying in them. OCOM’s is all over the place. Bastyr’s looks good on paper but the students I have talked to have some things are lacking in the implementation.

I’d like to really learn and discuss those little things we sort of gloss over at the master’s level.

As for setting a consensus, I have no problem with that. There are few issues I’d feel strongly about so long as I can continue to practice at the level I am at until I find a program that suits me–and the money to go on to the program if I choose that path.

Evan says:

02/20/2008

I’m in Australia so don’t know the American scene.

I’m told there is a Japanese proverb: listen to the words, and watch the direction of the feet! The rhetoric and arguments are most often in service of vested interests.

I think the usual understanding of education is wrong. Theory is the reflection on experience, not its beginning point. Doctorates and the rest are usually based on this flawed model. That research prepares one to teach is usually quickly falsified by the experience of those at university. Teaching is a separate skill.

Witht he Ph.D. paradigm it is very difficult to do anything worthwhile as a piece of higher study. The colleges can do something about this and I hope they do.

You will likely find that in the field there are a couple of established positions and their adherents who are blocking the process. Winning an argument won’t help.

In my experience students and clients can come to agreement on what is desirable quite rapidly (clinincal efficacy, practitioners ability to related to people as a human being etc), the blockage comes at the institutional and bureaucratic level.

Personally I think the academic is a huge waste of time and resources. A professional doctorate could be of huge benefit if it helped people describe and improve their practice. But this is a big ask. There are other examples of this but they are rare.

I wish you every success is increasing clinical efficacy and healing more people more rapidly. Don’t lose sight of this as the goal in the morass of academia and bureaucracy.

Grace and Peace,
Evan

Jason says:

11/24/2008

Is work on the CCM doctorate at NCNM continuing? Or has the ACAOM non-resolution halted the process?

Eric says:

11/25/2008

Jason : the answer is yes and no. My most recent information indicates that we’re looking more at a PhD and letting the regulatory stuff settle itself out. Our school’s philosophy is really better suited for a PhD anyway…

You might want to ask our Dean for more detailed information on the process as I am not intimately involved with it…

Eric

Sarah King says:

01/08/2010

Discussion of this matter will continue this month. As a student of Chinese Medicine I am curious why PhD recognition is important to fellow students who seek it? Most I have asked believe that a Doctor of Philosophy will soon be the expectation and that they want to be prepared for the change. The creation of first professional doctoral programs may be the first step in changing the entry level requirement for practitioners and this is what I find worrisome. I hope that all practitioners continue to study beyond their days in school, however the way in which they do that should be voluntary and suit their personal situation. Just because someone is willing to devote more of their time to mandated education does not ensure that they will become a more effective practitioner.

Evan says:

01/19/2010

I agree entirely Sarah.

Delia says:

05/02/2010

Hi,

Found some great info on this subject of Classical Chinese Medicine today. Here it is as follows:

Jung Tao School of Classical Chinese Medicine is the only school in the U.S. to offer a classical Chinese medicine based acupuncture program.

National College of Naturopathic Medicine (NCNM) is the only school in the U.S. to offer a classical Chinese medicine based herbal program at the Master’s degree level. NCNM’s acupuncture program is TCM based. In other words, NCNM’s claim to offer a “classical Chinese medicine approach” pertains only to their herbal program.

American University of Complimentary Medicine at http://www.aucm.org/ offers a Phd in Classical Chinese Medicine with focus both on acupuncture, herbs, as well as, other modalities of Chinese Medicine. The university was established in 1995 in Los Angeles, CA. Xiuling Ma and Jeffrey Yuen are on faculty among other amazing teachers.

Additional notes about the Phd program at AUCM:

1. AUCM is not accreditted by ACAOM.
2. ACAOM does not accredit Ph D programs, they are focussing on clinical doctorate degrees like DAOM and eventually DA.
3. Students in AUCM’s Ph D program are required to already have a master in OM and L Ac and so would most likely not be looking to transfer into a MTOM/MSTOM program.
4. Only a very small number of schools are regionally accreditted (SCU). California OM schools are not required to be ACAOM accreditted, but most are.
5. Requirements for teaching at a major college would be up to that institution and the state. I am not aware of many practitioners who have been able to get that op. One could very easily question the qualifications of the practitioner as far as education. Major colleges would most likely prefer to have instructors with doctoral level training.
6. Schools do not recognize degrees, it is usually up to a state educational agency/licensing board to determine that as well as the practitioner usage of “Dr”.

Cheers,
Delia

[email protected]

Delia says:

05/02/2010

One more additional note.

I’m in my final quarter before graduation at Emperor’s College of Traditional Oriental Medicine in Santa Monica, CA. The vast majority of my professors and clinic supervisors are from China (one is an M.D. from Vietnam with acupuncture training in France). The basic level of training in China to be a “doctor” is 6 years. It also includes interning in an acute care setting such as a hospital along side M.D.’s. DAOM or Phd adds on the extra 2 years that are essentially missing in an American education. Herbs (including I.V. administration thereof) and acupuncture are practiced alongside Western Medical modalities.

DAOM programs (to my understanding) add this additional two years towards mastery of the medicine, especially in a Western context , such as a hospital setting. I currently work in hospitals already as an R.N., so other than designing my own research…not a lot of appeal there. Unless I can find one in Psych…

However, there is the Phd.

A Phd program can be just adding “Dr.” in front of your name, as you mentioned, Sarah. Or it could be the basis for developing skills in research, teaching and writing as it regards Chinese Medicine. It is as worthwhile an endeavor as one makes it. Intention is everything.

Delia says:

05/02/2010

“Herbs (including I.V. administration thereof) and acupuncture are practiced alongside Western Medical modalities.”

LOL!

In CHINA! I meant to type…Herbs (including I.V. administration thereof) and acupuncture are practiced in acute care setting alongside Western Medical modalities in CHINA.

Cheers again,
Delia

[email protected]

Eric says:

05/02/2010

Hey Delia,

Thanks for the information – hopefully folks will find it to be helpful. One note, though, I don’t think it’s quite accurate to say that NCNM’s program is “Classical” only on the herbal side. In fact, I’ll say categorically it isn’t – though I may have erroneously thought that at one time. If the herbal program can be considered to be Classical, then so can the acupuncture program. The fact is that both are founded on the same principles, and all students take the core Classically based courses. It’s, perhaps, a silly point – but one worth making in such a public forum.

I’m still really working through the information regarding the PhD, DAOM and other advanced degree options. Hopefully, I can post about it more rigorously in the future.

Eric

Richard Dean says:

05/11/2010

Hi All,

Im a TCM practitioner/Acupuncturist in Sydney Australia. Down here the entry requirement for clinical practice is generally a 4 year Bachelor of Health Science (TCM or Acupuncture). Some graduates do continue on to undertake additional studies by completing a 2 year part-time Master of TCM or Acupuncture, but it is not essential and very few do it. Occasionally some practitioners wish to pursue even further study than this by doing a research PhD, but they are far and few between.

I can tell you that the number of class hours for TCM graduates in North America far exceeds anywhere else in the world. In Australia the average TCM graduate with a Bachelor degree undertakes approximately 2500 hours over 4 year, and this is no walk in the park. I feel that if a first professional doctorate degree is introduced in North America, they surely cannot extend the hours even greater than those already required by the current Masters degrees. You guys already have an extremely high number of contact hours.

Good luck with the final outcome.

Richard

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