who's responsible for higher standards

[Guest guest]

Who's responsible for maintaining the highest standards?

 

Certainly, schools are not allowed to recall students after granting a

degree. Its too late for the schools at that point. But do they have

an obligation to provide high level training? Or just entry level

training? If they only provide entry level training, then who is the

arbiter of mastery?

 

The NCCAOM explicitly states that their test is designed to measure what

is taught in schools. Their role is not to set the bar higher than

that.

 

Licensing boards focus on safety, not mastery, efficacy or even

competence. Perhaps that is as it should be. Who wants the government

doing any more than guaranteeing safety, anyway? Even CEU's are

required by your board, you can get away with just about anything.

 

Legislators are lobbied by special interests to write laws in specific

ways. These interests may include supplement manufacturers, etc. They

have little pressure to restrict practice for safety reasons.

 

Insurance companies care only about their own bottom line, so it would

seem they have something to gain by mandating higher standards (which is

one of the reasons I think insurance companies will be seduced by the

doctorate degree and stop covering those without doctorates eventually -

however, this is a false standards issue)

 

Professional associations protect practitioner's economic interests,

mainly. A continual refrain from state associations, at least, is that

we should have more rights (lab tests, hospital, etc.), but that our

current educational standards are just fine. How do we know they are

fine? Because we have a great safety record. But how about our

efficacy record?

 

So everyone is patrolling the low ground of minimum competence. What is

the incentive for mastery? We must return to the schools. Most schools

still admit virtually all applicants. Schools are tuition driven and

their boards demand more students for more revenues. Yet staff is

underpaid (and except at a few of the most well established schools)

undertrained. There is tremendous pressure to pass all students. It is

virtually unheard of for a student to not make it through TCM school in

the USA. What a pack of geniuses we must be, totally busting the

standard failure curves for all other disciplines, academic and

professional.

 

While I know many earnest professors who are trying hard for higher

standards, they are fighting major bureaucratic inertia in many cases.

I mean, all other things being equal, how does one assess a doctors

credentials? They all passed their exams, got licensed, belong to

associations, take mandatory CE classes. It does come back to where one

went to school (or where one practices). So the awe of Harvard is

overwhelming, for example. We even like to invoke it when we refer to

David Eisenberg, Ted Kapchuk and Andrew Weil, who support our causes.

 

But why do medical schools compete to be the best? what is their

incentive? research dollars. endowments. These things are not flowing

freely to most TCM schools. But when schools have to compete for these

dollars to survive, we will perhaps see some winnowing of the field.

but I do not expect significant voluntary increase in standards outside

these pressures. Only one master's program in the USA requires chinese

language, for example.

 

[Guest guest]

why do you say that most schools admit virtually every applicant? That

is just not true. Nor is it true that it is unheard of for people to not make

it through TCM school. I'm tempted to say more in order to bolster my point,

but I am not sure it would be appropriate. I will say, in answer to both your

message and Ken's, that I feel we are setting a very high standard given the

limit of a 3,000+ hour program. We could do more with a 4,000 or a 6,000 hour

program, but nobody would come. And yes, Ken, we are allowed to have ideals.

I have a few myself, but I also work daily in the realities of running a

masters program.

 

Julie Chambers

[Guest guest]

 

 

> Who's responsible for maintaining the highest standards?

 

The aweful truth is that you are. I am. Every individual in the

field is responsible for setting and maintaining the highest standards.

 

> Certainly, schools are not allowed to recall students after granting a

> degree. Its too late for the schools at that point. But do they have

> an obligation to provide high level training? Or just entry level

> training? If they only provide entry level training, then who is the

> arbiter of mastery?

 

The final arbiter of mastery is the question: Would I want that doctor

taking care of me? Physician, heal thyself.

>

> So everyone is patrolling the low ground of minimum competence. What is

> the incentive for mastery?

 

In those that I have had the honor of meeting I would say that what

makes a master is the recognition that there is no other choice. William

Blake said that people who repress their desires do so only because

they have desires that are weak enough to be repressed. The desire

for mastery must simply overcome the various forces of mediocrity

to which you make reference and not fall prey to the tedium of life.

 

 

>It does come back to where one

> went to school (or where one practices). So the awe of Harvard is

> overwhelming, for example. We even like to invoke it when we refer to

> David Eisenberg, Ted Kapchuk and Andrew Weil, who support our causes.

>

> But why do medical schools compete to be the best? what is their

> incentive?

 

There is another important motivation driving schools to maintain the higest

standards: recruitment of new students and new faculty. When it is an honor

for which the brightest candidates compete to attend a school of medicine,

the school is more or less guaranteed full enrollment. How many applicants

are turned away every year from the leading medical schools?

 

The only way for schools to expect to stimulate the demand for excellence

in their students is for them to demand it of themselves. We must demand

it of ourselves and of each other. Perhaps this is idealism, but it is also

a

recognition of the actual mechanics of standards of excellence in the

medical field.

 

Such standards have long existed in Chinese medicine. The Chinese ideal of a

God of Medicine such as Sun Si Miao, Hua Tuo, Zhang Zhong Jing, and the

like is a curious embodiment of personal integrity and compassion. How much

do we teach in existing curricula of the standards and ideals that such

physicians

bequeathed to their descendants, to us?

 

Chinese medical training has always included rigorous self-examination

and self-cultivation on the part of students. In order for such practices

to become widespread, students must be told that they are part of

the educational process. Not part but the core.

 

The call for higher standards must be heard not only in the community

but in the privacy of one's innermost heart.

 

If the traditional standards were simply employed, our contemplation of

higher

standards would have an altogether different character.

 

Ken

[Guest guest]

Hi Julie,

 

I hope that nothing I said gave you the idea that I question your

personal ideals or your integrity. First, if I had such questions,

I would raise them directly. Second, I don't. The situation I

have been describing is endemic to the system that has grown

up to deliver Chinese medical education in this country.

 

In fact I have enormous respect for you and those like yourself who

toil daily at the reality of running such training programs. I recognize

that whatever drawbacks such programs possess, they have

been largely responsible for the establishment of the subject

in these parts for the past couple of decades.

 

Along with this recognition comes public scrutiny and the demand

for improvement. This demand must be constant. It must be

voiced. And it must be responded to.

 

This is why I feel so strongly about Bob Felt's suggestion that

a fund be created to administer an ongoing survey of the profession

to provide a data base containing answers to what ought to be

everybody's question: how do practitioners fare after graduation?

 

I believe the attrition rate is rather high, but where exactly can

we even turn to find out? It seems to me that this should be

one of, if not the key reality in running a masters program.

Would it not be an enormous advantage to a school to be able

to promote to potential students that 95% of its graduates

are practicing successfully? First we have to find out what

the percentage is.

 

If we can focus more attention on such concerns, we can, I believe,

cultivate a more nuturing field where ideals are encouraged to

flourish.

 

Ken

 

> why do you say that most schools admit virtually every applicant?

That

> is just not true. Nor is it true that it is unheard of for people to not

make

> it through TCM school. I'm tempted to say more in order to bolster my

point,

> but I am not sure it would be appropriate. I will say, in answer to both

your

> message and Ken's, that I feel we are setting a very high standard given

the

> limit of a 3,000+ hour program. We could do more with a 4,000 or a 6,000

hour

> program, but nobody would come. And yes, Ken, we are allowed to have

ideals.

> I have a few myself, but I also work daily in the realities of running a

> masters program.

>

> Julie Chambers

>

>

> Chronic Diseases Heal - Chinese Herbs Can Help

>

[Guest guest]

Ken, isn't it a requirement when obtaining a license to operate a school in

California that these statistics are available? I believe that is one of the

questions the state asks on its form.

 

 

school license a school to be able to promote to potential students that

95% of its graduates

are practicing successfully? First we have to find out what the percentage

is.

 

Ed Kasper L.Ac., Santa Cruz, California

[Guest guest]

Ed,

 

Well it seems a little illogical that a new school just applying for

licensure could possibly have a statistic on how its graduates

are faring in practice, since they can't produce graduates who

are qualified to sit for the licensing exam until such an application

has been approved.

 

But, it certainly may be. In that case, such statistics should be readily

available. Can anyone post them here? I'm particularly interested

in learning what percentage of graduates and license holders remain

in practice after 3 years? after 5 years?

 

We can always add up the total number of valid licenses and compare

it to the total number of graduates and new licenses and figure out

an attrition rate.

 

But if schools are already monitoring and reporting this, then the

numbers should be readily available. Anybody have them?

 

Ken

-

HappyHerbalist.com <Health

 

Monday, May 29, 2000 12:21 PM

RE: who's responsible for higher standards

 

 

> Ken, isn't it a requirement when obtaining a license to operate a school

in

> California that these statistics are available? I believe that is one of

the

> questions the state asks on its form.

>

>

> school license a school to be able to promote to potential students that

> 95% of its graduates

> are practicing successfully? First we have to find out what the percentage

> is.

>

> Ed Kasper L.Ac., Santa Cruz, California

>

>

> ------

> Accurate impartial advice on everything from laptops to table saws.

> http://click./1/4634/9/_/542111/_/959627373/

> ------

>

> Chronic Diseases Heal - Chinese Herbs Can Help

>

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 5/29/00 12:03:11 PM Pacific Daylight Time,

yulong writes:

 

<<

 

Julie,

I hope that nothing I said gave you the idea that I question your

personal ideals or your integrity. First, if I had such questions,

I would raise them directly. Second, I don't. The situation I

have been describing is endemic to the system that has grown

up to deliver Chinese medical education in this country.

>>

 

Dear Ken, no, nothing of the kind! I enjoy this exchange and it takes a lot

to ruffle me!

 

With all this talk about excellence etc., please, we must keep in mind how

young the education in Chinese medicine is in this country! The quality of

the education has improved immensely over the past 15 years, from what I have

been told by " elders " who were educated in the early 80s. True, we do not yet

have applicants and faculty lined up clamoring to get in, but we are in such

relative infancy.

 

Julie

[Guest guest]

Ken, And yes

....a new school just applying for licensure could possibly have a statistic

on how its graduates

are faring in practice ...

BUT they must supply statistics on how__other graduates__ are faring in

practice. A school i.e. business, must have by necessity a business plan:

they must know where their pool of resources are coming from and where they

will go.

The state in this sense frowns upon taking candy from babies.

the State of California should then also should have this information also

available /be responsibly. The U.S. Census and another government agency

does have statistics available for all professions. see " Government Outlook

Handbook " .

If the schools are not dutiful in their obligations here maybe someone

should hold them to the test.

 

Ed Kasper L.Ac., Santa Cruz, California

 

 

Ed,

 

Well it seems a little illogical that a new school just applying for

licensure could possibly have a statistic on how its graduates

are faring in practice, since they can't produce graduates who

are qualified to sit for the licensing exam until such an application

has been approved.

 

But, it certainly may be. In that case, such statistics should be readily

available. Can anyone post them here? I'm particularly interested

in learning what percentage of graduates and license holders remain

in practice after 3 years? after 5 years?

 

We can always add up the total number of valid licenses and compare

it to the total number of graduates and new licenses and figure out

an attrition rate.

 

But if schools are already monitoring and reporting this, then the

numbers should be readily available. Anybody have them?

 

Ken