Overview
Between the two world wars Traditional Chinese Medicine was neglected in China in favor of conventional Western medicine. Allopathic [1] medical schools were established and doctors trained. But after World War II, it became apparent that the few Western-trained doctors could not serve China's large and growing population. Western medicine was also expensive and unavailable to many of the common people who continued with traditional practitioners when they could find them.
Previously traditional Chinese medicine had been taught by apprenticeship, but this was a lengthy process. To meet the need for traditional physicians, Chairman Mao initiated a system of traditional medical colleges along western lines.
As a first step the new training colleges appointed committees of scholars and practitioners to write textbooks standardizing traditional medicine. China, however, is a country of regions, and over the centuries different traditions of medicine had evolved. The committees chose for inclusion in their texts features that the different traditions had in common. In the process they created a new "school" or philosophy of medicine which they called Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).
The TCM texts from these medical schools, translated into English, were adopted by the new schools of acupuncture being started in the United States. The philosophy of medicine embodied in the TCM texts has therefore been accepted and is generally recognized as "acupuncture" in the USA.
Acupuncture, the insertion of thin needles into sensitive points on channels of subtle energy, or the warming of such points with moxibustion for the purpose of regulating Qi flow in the meridians, was historically one of five (some say seven or nine) branches of Oriental medicine. The branches were Qi Gong (energy gathering and directing practices, involving visualization, movement and breath), food therapy, medical massage, acumoxa therapy and herbology. In the west, the image of "acupuncture" with needles has captured the imagination and represents all five branches in the minds of most Americans.
In the early 1980's the National Commission for the Certification of Acupuncture (NCCA) of Washington, D.C. began to offer a certifying examination in acupuncture that now is accepted by many states as the standard for licensing. Over the years the Commission has purposely represented a spectrum of philosophies and schools of acupuncture in the examination. But, as the referenced texts and the bulk of the questions indicate, the examination is based principally on TCM.
In June 1996 the NCCA added "Oriental Medicine" to its name to reflect the addition of new certifying examinations in Chinese herbology and (later) Asian Bodywork Therapy, and is now known as NCCAOM.
The TCM emphasis of the NCCAOM acupuncture examination influences how American colleges of Oriental medicine approach their subject. Since most states require passing the NCCAOM acupuncture exam for licensing, schools must prepare their students in TCM.
The NCCAOM examination serves a useful purpose. By standardizing theory, it unites practitioners; by setting recognizable standards, it enables state legislatures and the public to identify acupuncture as a profession. Standardization does not rule out diversity, but it does challenge it. To train practitioners in a line other than TCM, schools with different philosophies of acupuncture must teach both TCM and the wisdom of their masters.
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