10 MYTHS ABOUT THE First-Professional Doctorate for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (FPD)

1. A FPD WILL RAISE THE STANDARD OF EDUCATION 

The main assumption layered into this myth is that the current level of education 

is deficient in some way.  Those who support an increase in educational hours for 

entry-level, and a new degree title claim that because the new programs will 

involve more integrative medical training, acupuncture will become more 

accepted by western medical practitioners, facilities, and reimbursers.  This 

simply is not true.  

What is true is that a new-entry level doctorate (FPD) will raise the cost and time 

involved to earn this degree.  The educational effects, if any, are yet to be 

measured or evaluated, and the conclusion that more education means more 

jobs or earnings or even a better education for graduates is unfounded.  

Questions this myth raises: 

Do current AOM graduates lack knowledge, skills, competence, or are they in 

some way dangerous?  Who has perceived these deficiencies? practitioners, 

educators, governments, other healthcare professions, insurance companies, 

hospitals or patients?  What exactly will be achieved by “raising the standard” (ie 

increasing hours) of education when the existing education already produces 

safe and effective practitioners?  Who would benefit financially? 

2. FPD WILL MAKE MORE JOBS FOR ACUPUNCTURISTS 

Currently there are very few jobs for licensed acupuncturists, outside of teaching 

in acupuncture programs.  Data on the actual incomes of acupuncturists is 

scarce and misleading, and a large percentage of licensed acupuncturists stop 

practicing in the first 5 years.  Although bio-medicine is starting to become 

interested in AOM there will be no sudden increase in the demand for 

acupuncturists, even with a new degree title or a year more of education focused 

on bio-medicine.  No one outside of the profession will take much notice or have 

much invested in what degree title and acupuncturist has.  Even research jobs 

will not become available to entry-level doctorate graduates, as these programs 

are not academic doctorates intended to make a significant academic 

contribution to the field (like a PhD.)  Entry-level doctorates like entry-level 

masters degrees, provide the basic training necessary to begin practicing. 

Questions this myth raises: 

What are the AOM organizations doing to create more jobs for licensed 

acupuncturists?  How are the schools helping students to succeed/ stay in 

business?  Why are there so few statistics about AOM employment?  How many 

hours does the “typical” acupuncturist work? How much do they actually gross? 

net? or earn per hour?  Why do so many acupuncturists tell the same story of 

starting with the assumption that AOM would be an easier and more lucrative 

profession? 

3. STAKEHOLDERS OF THE PROFESSION HAVE REACHED     

 CONSENSUS REGARDING THE DEVELOPMENT OF STANDARDS 

 FOR AND SUBSEQUENT PILOTING OF A FIRST PROFESSIONAL 

 DOCTORATE IN ACUPUNCTURE AND IN ORIENTAL MEDICINE , 

 IN ANTICIPATION OF MAKING IT THE NEW ENTRY-LEVEL DEGREE 

 The following groups of stakeholders have not been adequately 

 addressed: 

1. Current AOM patients 

2. Employers of acupuncturists 

3. Stakeholders in communities having limited access to acupuncture 

because of affordability,  lack of AOM care-facilities in these places, and 

lack of practitioners from and serving these communities 

All of the surveys conducted by the large organization of the profession have 

shown disagreement about changing the entry-level degree for the profession. 

Terms like “widely accepted” and consensus are not clear.   

Questions this myth raises: 

What level of agreement is acceptable to the acupuncture organizations?  A 

simple majority of those polled?  An overwhelming majority?  Who are the most 

important stakeholders?  The patients, the students, the practitioners, the 

schools, the organizations?  Who stands to profit most directly from these 

programs? 

4. AS A PROFESSION, AOM HAS A CLEAR VISION FOR IT’S FUTURE 

    ROLES IN THE HEALTHCARE  

A vision for our profession, or any other healthcare field, needs to be tied to core 

values such as access, affordability, patient care, and the creation of stable, 

sustainable delivery system.  The profession is, and has long been, divided about 

the means to uphold these most basic core values.  Like bio-medicine, 

professional values for AOM have the potential to become weakened by the 

costly, bureaucratic, and sometimes greed driven elements of current delivery 

systems.   

As a nation we are struggling to envision and re-structure our healthcare system.  

AOM, like it or not, still remains on the edges of that system, with less than 5% of 

the population even seeking AOM services.   From this vantage point, however, 

we can better see and navigate our way to a more equitable and sustainable 

means of providing our medicine to the people.  We can also choose to structure 

training and education in AOM to reflect and promote social justice, and to 

realistically account for economic realities for all the people we can potentially 

serve with our care and services.  

Questions this myth raises: 

Will AOM ever be able to reconcile the different visions for the profession, 

especially when the approaches diverge so much?  Do we need to reconcile or 

create a tiered profession?  How much do professional politics and personal 

agendas play into the professional organizations’ priorities?   

5. ACUPUNCTURE IS LIKE PHYSICAL THERAPY, OCCUPATIONAL 

    THERAPY, PHARMACY, OR NURSING 

PT, OT, Pharm. and nursing all have their foundations in the principles of bio- 

medicine, which are at the core of the medical system that supports these 

professions.  Acupuncture is fundamentally different, and though it’s modalities 

and theories can be practiced along side those of bio-medicine, the differences at 

the core of the two medicines cannot be merged.   

There are literally thousands and thousands of clinical jobs in PT, OT, Pharm. 

and nursing that graduates need only apply for.  There are very few jobs like this 

in acupuncture—maybe a few dozen.  Most acupuncturists must also be 

entrepreneurs.   If acupuncture were truly like these professions, and was poised 

on the brink of becoming wildly accepted by the mainstream, there would need to 

be shorter degree programs to address the shortage of acupuncturists. 

Questions this myth raises: 

Are there other professions that acupuncture is more similar to?  What have the 

outcomes been in those professions where there are multiple entry-level 

degrees?  Do the people with the newer degrees earn more? have greater skills, 

job-satisfaction, confidence, debt? 

6. FPD PROGRAMS AREN’T GOING TO COST MORE THAN THE 

    CURRENT MASTER’S LEVEL PROGRAMS 

Yes they will and here’s why:  having faculty with higher academic degrees 

requires higher salaries;  FPD programs will require larger libraries, more labs 

and clinic sites, more administrative oversight, more evaluation, etc.  All of these 

things will cost the student more.  The existing master’s degree is already fairly 

expensive and burdens graduates with debt for years after graduation.  An FPD 

would further increase debt burden for students.   

Questions this myth raises: 

Post-graduate clinical doctorate degrees in acupuncture recently came into 

existence as a means for those desiring further institutional learning.  These 

programs have just begun to be evaluated.  Why is there so much pressure to 

make yet another degree for the profession that would require increases in costs 

to students, schools, and ultimately patient/consumers? 

7. HAVING AN FPD AS THE ENTRY LEVEL REQUIREMENT WILL 

 ATTRACT MORE PEOPLE TO THE PROFESSION 

What will attract new people to the profession is affordable, quality, education 

and sustainable, stable jobs.  One supporter of a new entry-level degree 

speculated that black and Hispanic people are not generally entrepreneurial, and 

therefore a new degree title in acupuncture would attract students from these 

greatly under-represented groups to the profession, because the new degree will 

create jobs.  This thinking is fantasy at best and racist at worse.  

Questions this myth raises: 

What is the demographic of most acupuncture students?  Why are there so few 

black or Hispanic acupuncturists?  What is the economic status of most 

acupuncture students?  Who are we trying to attract to the profession?  Are there 

any scholarships or student-loan forgiveness for acupuncturist?  Would  acu- 

technician training be useful to patients or students?  in what settings?  How 

much would this type of training cost?  How long would it take? 

8. EVERYONE WHO IS CURRENTLY LICENSED WILL BE 

 GRANDFATHERED IN AND WILL AUTOMATICALLY RECEIVE THE 

 NEW “DOCTOR” DEGREE TITLE 

Those currently in practice with master’s degree or pre-master’s degree 

certificates will be give the option to complete a “transitional” or “post- 

professional” degree.  These programs will be virtually un-supervised and un- 

evaluated simply due to a lack of resources (since a new entry-level degree 

would be the priority for these resources.) 

It is highly unlikely that the professional organizations would accredit post- 

professional or transitional degree programs, due to cost and low demand.  

Those seeking to “update” to an entry-level doctorate would bear the expense of 

another year of school (approximately $18,000 in tuition), travel to and from such 

programs, and loss of work while completing such a program.   

State lawmakers look to professional organizations and certifying agencies to set 

the standards of education.  If the FPD became the entry-level degree, some 

states would change their laws to reflect this.  Without strong advocacy and 

representation practitioners with master’s level or non-degree certificate 

educations (like all of our old teachers) could be legislated out of practice.   

Questions this myth raises: 

Isn’t it ironic that so many of the supporters of new, longer programs, are people 

who graduated from much shorter programs than those in existence today?  Do 

they consider themselves safe and effective practitioners?  Can your teachers 

get a license in your state?  Are the laws in your state exclusionary?  Have you 

ever been involved in the legislative process for your profession? 

9. ACUPUNCTURISTS ARE PRIMARY CARE PRACTITIONERS 

In a few states, like New Mexico and California, acupuncturists are in the letter of 

the law called primary care.  New Mexico suffers from an overall lack of medical 

professionals and so acupuncturists have been asked to help out.  In California 

there has been a lot of confusion regarding the role of AOM practitioners.  In the legal intent section of the California licensing law LAc. are "primary care professionals" in the field of AOM.  This is much better explained in all of it's complexity inLitle Hoover Commission report on the subject found at http://www.lhc.ca.gov/studies/175/report175.pdf .    Nowhere in the regulations of the legislation are LAc. defined as "primary care practitioners.  In NM acupuncturists, due to an aggressive AOM lobby, can order diagnostic tests like x-rays and blood work, and can prescribe a limited number of drugs, and do injection therapies.  

These two examples of acupuncturists as primary care are repeatedly paraded 

as a call to the entire profession to assume roles and responsibilities that a 

majority of practitioners do not want, nor are qualified to have.  For those 

practitioners desiring a place in the integrated care setting, the post-graduate 

DAOM degree is an opportunity to gain the proficiencies necessary to make this 

leap.  To require this leap as a next step for all present and future AOM 

practitioners would be a great detriment to AOM’s potential to reach hundreds of  

millions more patients.  

Acupuncture and OM needs to be promoted for what it is: a simple, inexpensive, 

treatment for almost anything, that reduces stress, and prevents illness.  As our 

medicine has changed in time and with cultural contact with the west, we bear 

different responsibilities.  Our greatest benefit to others is currently in the simple 

and in expensive way that acupuncture provides relief for almost any condition, 

and in particular conditions worsened by stress.   If we prioritize the need to be 

seen as “equals” with bio-medical professionals, we cannot prioritize the needs of 

our patients.  

10. A DOCTOR TITLE FOR AOM PRACTITIONERS IS NEEDED TO HELP 

      THE PUBLIC UNDERSTAND WHAT IT IS WE DO 

At present there are at least 5 degree titles for acupuncturists (MTCM, MAc., 

MAOM, DAOM, DOM—technically those with DOM certificates do not actually 

have a degree called DOM) and almost as many license titles (LAc., CAc.-WI, 

DAc.-RI, AP-FL, DOM-NM). If you find this confusing, imagine how the general 

public would feel, or a prospective employer or non-acupuncturist colleague.  

We can best help the public to understand what it is we do by delivering 

treatments directly to them.