Guest guest Posted March 2, 2002 Report Share Posted March 2, 2002 <<< I think a far better way to influence schools and accreditation committees and other organizations in the field would be if signficant numbers of the membership of the community turned up demanding to be more well educated themselves and to see the standards raised along the lines that we've been discussing.Of course the schools would pay attention. As they carefully monitor what the market will bear. The whole field, the whole phenomenon of the growth of Chinese medicine is, as was recently pointed out, a grass roots movement. I've been saying for months now that I want to wage a grass roots campaign to increase literacy of Chinese medical language and literature on the part of students and practitioners.>>> A grass roots movement would be chaotic and unpredictable; after all, that's what first brought us to the situation we are talking about changing. And, considering the poor sales reported by COMP publishers, the demand for increased literacy isn't that strong either. Therefore, how much less interested in more work would those new students be who think of it only as a trade, and are not strongly motivated by emotional factors like the primary generation. How long are you willing to wait for this interest to grow? I think a top-down approach---position paper, political efforts to raise standards, etc.---would be more effective. <<I'm willing to and have every intention to cooperate with any school that wants to see such a program go forward. I don't praticularly want to devote a great deal of time or attention to political wrangling, as I think it misses the point.>> I grew up in Chicago, so I think these situations are mostly political wrangling. If intellectual idealism was a real motivation, your position's success would be a foregone conclusion. I suspect our current system of national organizations and schools prefer to preserve the status quo and adapt only very slowly. Again, it becomes a condition of how long you are willing to wait? This type of forum is uniquely suited to present intellectual positions, debate issues, arrive at a consensus, and speak out because it is not tied to a already determined political/business agenda. And, it fits your criteria in that it is the very method where " signficant numbers of the membership of the community turned up demanding to be more well educated themselves and to see the standards raised along the lines that we've been discussing. " Jim Ramholz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 3, 2002 Report Share Posted March 3, 2002 Jim, I don't see the two approaches as being mutually exclusive, rather mutually reinforcing. As I said, I don't discredit the idea of a consensus statement. For me, the objective remains what's going on in people's minds. If you and other want to draft a position paper, I'm happy to contribute and as editor of an international journal, I can offer an additional place where it can be published. There are five or six papers in the forthcoming issue of CAOM that relate to such an initiative. They are the first summaries from a meeting organized by Steve Birch and co-sponsored by CAOM that was held last July in the UK to discuss the design of clinical trials for acupuncture. I believe the target we've been describing, i.e. increased access to the knowledge base of traditional Chinese medicine, can be addressed from many perspective. And I think the development of sensible criteria for the design of studies is one important area that can move the whole field into a more well grounded posture. We're also pursuing this from a more theoretical perspective with a number of papers on the relationship between complexity and Chinese medicine will appear in the June issue. A position paper from CHA on educational guidelines would be a welcome addition this series of publications. Perhaps it can be placed on the agenda for the upcoming CHA conference and published as a report on the proceedings. ? Ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 3, 2002 Report Share Posted March 3, 2002 , " dragon90405 " <yulong@m...> wrote: > > A position paper from CHA on educational > guidelines would be a welcome addition > this series of publications. I think the fact that I am an educational insider precludes me from actually writing an impartial piece on this subject or at least it would be perceived as biased. However I would welcome others who wish to do this to submit it to this forum for debate. On paper, I think current academic standards are actually adequate. I see no way how chinese language could be incorporated at the master's level other than making it a prereq. There is certainly no more room for additional training in classics or internal medicine in 3200 hours and nothing in the program is extraneous filler, IMO. Right now at PCOM, we are working on insuring that what is learned in class can actually be put to use in clinic. My main concern is thus setting up standards by which to rigorously assess clinical competency. Some of us are already requiring students to prescribe herbs in clinic, a task which has been largely voluntary in other intern clinics in which I have worked. So far, I have been presently surprised. When push comes to shove, my students are performing very well in this area, an area where they have lacked confidence in the past. So far, I note: 1. you need to practice the skill or you will never learn it 2. you need to get postive support for clear thinking and any semblance of correct prescribing 3. you need to be corrected for any errors and shown how to rectify the formula 4. there needs to be some formal structure and minimum requirements to accomplish these tasks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 3, 2002 Report Share Posted March 3, 2002 > > 1 There is certainly no more room for > additional training in classics or internal medicine in 3200 hours and > nothing in the program is extraneous filler, IMO. I think that is highly debatable... -Jason Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 3, 2002 Report Share Posted March 3, 2002 Right now at PCOM,we are working on insuring that what is learned in class can actuallybe put to use in clinic. >>>And that is were it should be Alon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.