isn't this reasonable?

[Guest guest]

I think so.

 

Pacific College: Building the Future of Oriental Medicine

Part Two of Acupuncture Today's Interview With President Jack Miller, LAc

http://www.acupuncturetoday.com/archives2003/aug/08miller.html

 

Acupuncture Today (AT): Considering the fact that Pacific is offering a

doctoral program now, and several colleges have doctoral programs or are

preparing to offer them, what do you think is going to happen to the

master's degree in the profession?

 

Jack Miller (JM): The honest answer is, I don't know. We face pressure

particularly in California, from some politicians within and outside our

profession, to make the doctorate an entry-level program so people would

not be allowed to practice if they only graduate from a master's level

program. I don't favor that. I think at this point, we've got a really

beautiful situation in the profession where people can do their master's

degree, then go into practice. They can practice safely - we've proven

that for the last 20 or more years - and then they can obtain their

post-licensure doctorate while they're working in the field that they've

chosen.

 

I think that allowing the doctorate to remain optional for some time will

allow us to see the real value of doctoral-level training. If at some

point, everybody in the field sees that having the doctorate provides them

a competitive advantage in the marketplace, it allows them to give better

care to their patients, and their patients are more likely to see them

because they have the doctorate, the doctorate will become the de facto

standard in the field. We won't even need to have legislated it; people

will just do it because they'll need it to be competitive.

 

If, though, after some years, not many people are doing the doctoral

training, and patients aren't seeing any difference that they're willing

to pay for between people who have doctorate-level training and people who

have master's-level training, then we might see it become just a degree

for faculty, or advanced researchers, or specialists, in which case we

wouldn't want to have legislated something like this. So we're really kind

of blessed with the perfect situation of being able to see the true value

of this, rather than having to legislate it hastily. I hope that's what

happens. I really don't understand the frantic push for the doctorate as

entry-level, particularly since it's being pushed by people who don't want

to or are unwilling to do that level of training themselves.

 

 

 

 

Chinese Herbs

 

 

" Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre

minds " -- Albert Einstein