andy wegman's blog

The following is a copy of the letter sent by the CAN Board to ACAOM (Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine) stating official opposition to the FPD.

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To the Commissioners of the Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine,

CAN's annual board meeting took place at Liberty Hall in Portland, OR on Saturday October, 24th 2009 to coincide with a two-day WCA training and Dr. Michael Smith's Sunday morning presentation.

...wanted to share an interesting story unfolding at clinic...

CAN recently asked for the clinics listed on the Locate-A-Clinic page (full-time community-style clinics) to report the number of treatments they'd given over the period from March 1st to May 31st, 2009 - a three month time frame.

After a week of feedback and ~ 45 responses, we've got......36,000 treatments.

Frequent acupuncture treatments trump other Chinese medical modalities in potency.

This mantra has been weaved into CA workshops for some time now. I can attest to its accuracy, and like to pass it along as well.

Tony's a regular at the clinic.

Omnipresent OM authors Honora Lee Wolfe and Bob Flaws have recently posted separate entries on the Blue Poppy Press blog pages, praising community acupuncture.

In keeping with LarryG's Dream Journal series of blog posts, I'd like to submit a letter I received from a patient who been getting treated at our CAP in Manchester, NH - with her permission of course.  

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(Note: This letter also appears in its entirety in the 'Dear Board' forum for CAN suscribers. The current board felt it was important for all CAN readers - members or not - to have access to this letter as well, outside of the forums.)

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

CAN's annual board meeting took place at The Green House across from Working Class Acupuncture in Portland, OR on Thursday October, 23rd.

CAN's new board is comprised of:

I took part today in a live interview on public radio program 'Word of Mouth' here in Concord, NH - carried on New Hampshire Public Radio.

I would imagine the topic at hand will be of interest to anybody who would be reading a CAN blog post.

Enjoy...

http://www.nhpr.org/node/17455

(BTW - I had no input as to the title of the piece...ironic, right?)

Coming into CA as a clinic owner/practitioner is one thing.

Unique demands surrounding the biz/clinic operations and hiring/managing people are as interesting as they are varied and unexpected, while demanding of collaborative, material and mental resources aplenty.

Chalk this up as yet another lesson from the never-ending “Let Your Community Help Build Your Community Acupuncture Clinic” lecture we've heard so often on CAN.

Having been impressed by acupuncture in general and happy with her experience at her local community acupuncture clinic up here in Manchester, Coleen – a community access TV manager – asked if I would be willing to be interviewed on camera to talk acupuncture/community acupuncture.

The answer was 'yes, of course'.

Thanks to her and her colleague's enthusiasm and talents, the following ½ hour program was filmed, produced and edited for the purpose of spreading the word of acupuncture and CA around The Queen City and surrounding towns.

In his excellent "The Technium" blog, Kevin Kelly posits a hypothetical threshold of "1,000 true fans" an artist would need to make a living while working their chosen craft (http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fans.php).

The biz model Kelly suggests strikes me as fundamentally similar to the manner Community Acupuncturists approach their clinics; that is maintaining financial partnerships with many 'modest-paying', appreciative 'fans' rather than a scant number of higher-paying ones.