Guest guest Posted April 27, 2005 Report Share Posted April 27, 2005 I agree Matt. I believe though that the practitioner can start by not only promoting themselves but also our profession. To do this, all a practitioner has to do is to select a patient that was treated successfully and either get the patient, the practitioner, their association or a journalist to write up the case record and get it published in a local, national newspaper or magazine. An excellent way of promoting your own abilities and TCM. The down side to promoting the field of TCM is that the government, by way of obligation, has to investigate any popular form of healthcare; have it measured, analysed and verified. Of course, we all know that TCM doesn't fit the statically significant relationship. It's gonna be left up to someone to work it out. Personally, I think that at the moment research is pointed towards the validation of the practice rather than the theory. If they were to include the theory, major political hot potato, then we could see test subjects categorised during the inclusion/exclusion criteria according to their syndrome differentiation, based upon TCM theory. Of course, syndrome differentiation is a subject form and measures would have to be taken into account to sort this out. Kind regards Attilio D'Alberto Doctor of (Beijing, China) BSc (Hons) TCM MATCM 07786198900 attiliodalberto <http://www.attiliodalberto.com/> www.attiliodalberto.com Chinese Medicine Chinese Medicine On Behalf Of Matt Bauer 27 April 2005 04:33 Chinese Medicine Earning a living I have read the post regarding the struggles to earn a living in this profession with a sense of sorrow over the tremendous potential that continues to go unmet. While I think it is great for individuals to get marketing training and do what they can to promote their individual practices, such efforts will only scratch the surface of what we could enjoy collectively. It makes no sense for 10,000 practitioners to run around trying to promote their individual practices, when we should have a public outreach body promoting EVERYBODY'S practice. I am absolutely convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt, that a well organized public outreach campaign to educate the public about the benefits of acupuncture/OM would reap tremendous rewards. The public is very interested in acupuncture - they have heard so much good and virtually no bad about it. They are afraid however, to get involved in an uncertain relationship. They are afraid of what will happen if they just open up the yellow pages and pick an acupuncturist out of the phone book. Any well run campaign to make the public feel comfortable about who will be doing the acupuncture on them will make a world of difference. If 10,000 acupuncturists would contribute $100 a year, that would give us $1,000,000 to fund a " Acupuncture Advisory Board " with an 800 phone number to refer patients to " qualified, licensed acupuncture professionals. " As it is now, most Americans (sorry for the U.S. only post) do not have any idea that their is a profession of trained and licensed acupuncturists. Many just assume any Asian can get off the boat and put out a shingle to practice acupuncture. OUR PROFESSION HAS DONE VIRTUALLY NOTHING TO CORRECT THIS MISUNDERSTANDING. I saw a study about 5 years ago that showed that about 2% of Americans had tried acupuncture but 6% said they would be interested in trying it. That means three times more people who have tried acupuncture would like to try it but have not because they do not know what to expect form pursuing treatment. Even if such an effort did not get the funds mentioned above, a great deal could be done with little money by developing a education campaign utilizing the print media and the Internet. More than anything, we need to develop a body that is seen in the public's and media's eyes as THE authoritative body on the subject of acupuncture/OM, such as what the AMA is to American Western medicine. I firmly believe the demand for our services would EXPLODE with the right kind of nudge. Then practitioners would not have to spend large sums of money on marketing training or advertising. Of course, such a plan calls for people working collectively together. - Matthew Bauer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 28, 2005 Report Share Posted April 28, 2005 Attilio D'Alberto wrote: > I agree Matt. I believe though that the practitioner can start by not only > promoting themselves but also our profession. To do this, all a practitioner > has to do is to select a patient that was treated successfully and either > get the patient, the practitioner, their association or a journalist to > write up the case record and get it published in a local, national newspaper > or magazine. An excellent way of promoting your own abilities and TCM. Hi Attilio! It is a good idea, obviously, to use testimonials. But with the HIPPA law it becomes problematic. That data isn't ours to use any more! Regards, Pete Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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