Greetings OM Colleagues:

As you may have noticed, Qi-Unity is being published late this month as the AAOM Board and Staff was in Phoenix from October 17-23rd for Expo 2006. Our annual event was highly successful on many fronts, and we look forward to providing an in-depth follow-up in next month’s report as well as in the December 2006 American Acupuncturist.

It is at our annual events that we are able to see more acutely the status of our profession, its growth from one year to the next, where we are as practitioners, where we’ve been and where we choose to go, the challenges we face, and the opportunities that lie ahead.

As a personal observation, I noticed most keenly this year a shift in the degree to which unification of our profession is occurring. Across all fronts this is very apparent. Are the challenges that we face great? Absolutely! The greater the demand for our services the greater the challenge we shall experience as others will see us competing in their market and thus impacting their survival. Are our opportunities expanding? I’m a firm believer that with greater challenge comes greater opportunity. We’ll explore these in-depth as we review the outcomes of the conference, but I equate the shift that is occurring to something beyond challenge and opportunity; rather it is more about an internal shift of thinking, of actions, and of deeds that is apparent in our community today. When I came to this profession in 2001 there were threatened lawsuits fired from a multiple of directions, but today, on a national front, the organizations – AAOM , AOM Alliance, CCAOM, NCCAOM, ACAOM and FAOMRA are working together to achieve common goals representing levels of concern that are very real, with levels of substance that are sincere and abiding. As a result, the strengths of our independence and our interdependence are meaningful. The benefactor of this behavioral change is first and foremost the profession being served, but equally so is our society – the patient community - served by our profession.

Licensure: From the perspective of licensure of practitioners of OM, a 2005 study based on 2004 statistics by the National Acupuncture Foundation cited 22,671 licensed practitioners, while *Dr. Burke, et al’s article (referenced below) estimates 16,000 non-MD Licensed Acupuncturists. The disparity could relate to 6,000 allopathic physicians who have received training (Dower, 2003).

National Practice Acts: Forty-one states in the US now have practice acts; this leaves only Wyoming, North and South Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Delaware without statutes.

*Use of Acupuncture in the US: From the perspective of the patient community, in a recent article published in Volume 37 of The American Acupuncturist, entitled: Patterns of Acupuncture Use by Adam Burke, Phd, MPH, LAc and Dawn M. Upchurch, PhD, surveys from the National Health Interview Survey reflected a US adult population in 2002, reporting that approximately 4% of the sample reported lifetime use of acupuncture (1266 respondents representing approximately 8 million adults). Use of acupuncture as a complementary therapy (in conjunction with conventional western medicine) was the most common reported usage, but there were a significant number (44%) that indicated that they were using acupuncture as an alternative treatment because convention medicine did not work.

OM Business Growth: Lastly, from the perspective of OM businesses supporting acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, I don’t have current statistics at hand regarding the growth of this community, but from the perspective of AAOM’s serving this community within the framework of our conferences, the longevity and professional stature of businesses that support our profession is to be commended, as we have watched their cycle of solid growth increase significantly over the past decade. So, too, is the sophistication of products and services being offered by the AOM business community increasing at a remarkable rate. Within the framework of our convention, the business community exhibiting at our convention grew an astounding 52% in one year from 2005 to 2006.

Professional Optimism: Simplistically, the combined picture these statistics generate is one of conservative optimism - across all fronts we are growing as a profession, and the demand for our services is ever-increasing. Many of the challenges faced by our profession today such as protecting our access to herbs, attempts to practice acupuncture with limited licensure, the acceleration of medical acupuncture in the US, the AMA’s burgeoning efforts with Resolution 818 and HR 5688 (education, and academic requirement of “limited licensure” health care providers and “limited independent practitioners”), all of these are signs of our profession’s success in the marketplace. Thus we see the attempts by others to gain access to the ever-increasing patient based served by our practitioner community.

But in the face of optimism, across the country, our national and state associations are underserved by comparatively small number of dedicated volunteer board members, and too-few paid staff. Using ourselves as an example, the AAOM has only two full-time paid staff, myself and our IT Manager - Member Services Manager, and two part-time employees. From another perspective, the State of Michigan passed its Practice Act in early 2006, following an arduous 20-year journey by its volunteer board. The passage of Kentucky’s Practice Act, also in early 2006, carried its own story of challenges overcome against all odds, or South Carolina’s Practice Act, passed in early 2005 - overriding the Governor’s veto to become law. Again…beyond relative minimal hired lobby-support, all outcomes were gained through the sheer power of volunteer efforts.

A Perplexing Opportunity Prevails: Statistically, there are few associations in the US that have membership that exceed 10% of licensed acupuncturists in their state. If we were to consider the number of licensed acupuncturists cited in Dr. Burke et al.’s article, the AAOM represents 10% of licensed acupuncturists in the US, through current membership on the roles, while at the same time we have increased member benefits to levels that some say equal that of seasoned professional associations representing major medical allopathic providers. I look at these numbers and shake my head in wonder, not understanding “why” a profession that is commanding an ever-increasing market share chooses “not belonging” over “belonging” to the associations that carry the leadership of the future of which they serve. I recognize that our services do not carry the same dollar value in the marketplace. I recognize that for many there are school loans and leases to be paid, and families to support. I recognize that we are alternative providers, and thus characteristically, we are non-conventional people and are non-joiners by-nature. But for me, there is an abyss between where we are and where we need to be to secure our future, address the demands faced by our profession, and become not only sustainable as a medicine, but mainstream rather than alternative providers.

Spiritually, we don’t live that which we choose or think, but only that which we are – so our outer world is always a direct reflection of our inner health. In knowing this as “truth” then it stands to reason that we are now in the midst of a turning tide - from a non-joining profession to a profession that actively commits to membership – commits to belonging to its state and national associations. As I have highlighted above, I say this: AAOM’s Expo 2006 represented a genuine “turning” of heart, mind, thought, and deed of all present, from acts of war, to “acts of peace” …again, across myriads of fronts. What this means is that the “inner world” of that which comprises this profession has truly shifted, and thus our “outer world” will soon reflect this inner shift.

At the convention, I had someone sit across from me at dinner and say, “I can see the future. I can see your Destiny. And this is your Destiny. You are living your Destiny – right here, right now. You are in this lifetime to serve this profession. All that you have done, learned and been has taken you to this moment…and you must continue.” For me, there was no question of not continuing, but what was said to me is kindred to what I must say to you… this medicine is your Destiny. You have chosen this profession, this work, this sacrifice, to bring this medicine forward in this lifetime. I say to you, Commit, Join, Participate at whatever level your life allows.