16th European School Leaders Day (ESLD)
ETCMA had another very successful ESLD this year with an inspiring range of speakers and vibrant participant engagement. The topic ‘Are yesterday’s solutions for TCM education fit for the challenges of tomorrow?’ allowed us to follow a number of avenues for discussion. We had three speakers who spoke about their quality standards programs for acupuncture course providers. Each process inevitably had to take into consideration the wider healthcare settings and legislative arrangements made possible nationally in their own countries.
Our first speakers Dr. Iman Majd (Chair of the NCCAOM Board) and Mina Larson (CEO of NCCAOM) co-presented an overview of the standards and regulation for the practice of acupuncture in the US. There are 48 schools accredited by their accreditation commission (ACAHM) which is recognized by the US Dept. of Education. In order to practice in the States, practitioners need to have completed a 3- or 4-year Masters degree course accredited by the ACAHM, completed 1900-3000 in didactic and clinical contact hours, acquired a clean needle technique certificate from the Council of Colleges of Acupuncture and passed the NCCAOM certification exams. These certification exams are required in 46 states plus Washington DC (98% of the total number of states in the US), 27 of which require full certification in acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine.
The NCCAOM was established in 1982 and its first examinations came on stream in 1985. They have had 40 years to develop and refine their systems and processes. Interestingly, the NCCAOM conducts an extensive job analysis every 5 years to identify the frequency and criticality of job tasks which in turn influences the content of their exams. If a modality is not frequently practiced or considered critical to the job, then this is not tested for. The accreditation system in the UK, the BAAB, was originally modelled on that of the US, but with variations based on local conditions and was established in 1990. Over the years this too has undergone refinement and development based on changing organizational and educational requirements, but the two organizations (the BAAB and the NCCAOM) were able recently to conduct a cross referencing of their credentialing processes in order to verify the approximate equivalence of their educational standards. As this was indeed the case, a pathway has been established where NCCAOM diplomates can gain admission to the BAcC should they wish to
relocate to the UK and BAcC members are eligible to sit the NCCAOM board exams, should they wish to work in the US.
Dr Bögel-Witt, President of AGTCM, gave a presentation outlining their training standards and their internal quality assessment processes. AGTCM, founded n 1954, is a diverse organization comprising members who are physicians, midwives and complementary practitioners and which supports high quality standards for education and training to ensure professional competence and safety for practicing TCM. AGTCM oversees the quality standards in the 5 pillars of TCM: acupuncture, Chinese Pharmacology, Tuina, Qigong and Dietetics for 5 schools across Germany. AGTCM has a quality commission for education and training who are responsible for the supervision of the quality standards in each associated school looking at curricula and standards. On a baseline of 350 hours of basic TCM knowledge, they set recommended hours of study for each pillar eg 900 hours for acupuncture, 330 hours for Chinese herbs etc. In Germany, a Heilpraktiker (a healing practitioner) is an alternative and complementary healthcare practitioner recognized in German law, although there is not a national standardized training for this. They do need to have a good knowledge of medical sciences and law regulations, and usually specialize in a complementary healthcare discipline. AGTCM members are therefore a mixture of Heilpraktikers and orthodox medical professionals.
Our third speaker was Jonathan Pledger from the UK, Principal of the College of Integrated Chinese Medicine who talked about the importance of having degree level acupuncture education. He believes that a degree level education provides 5 key areas of benefit to students and the profession, namely accountability, self-reflection, governance, marketing and student security. He went on to outline how each of these areas is realized through the organizations it has to engage
with, to maintain professional accreditation and degree validation. Even though there are many inspections to go through and continuous monitoring, it forces
colleges to question how they are doing, to challenge assumptions in order to implement improvements and change, as well as receiving feedback on whether changes have been successful. They value the external, independent and impartial oversight that having a degree level course requires, even though they have to spend 10% of their income on paying for degree processes and procedures.
We spent the afternoon discussing elements brought up in the presentations as well as looking at the challenges currently facing our profession, which were similar regardless of the diverse educational and professional arrangements each country develops. We also shared our views and experiences around two questions set for the afternoon
- What do you understand by Integrative Medicine
- collaboration, partnership or being subsumed? In what way can we control this narrative?
- How should we engage with other healthcare professionals offering acupuncture and what are
the implications for how we organize educational standards?
An interesting discussion ensued about how the acupuncture profession itself should perhaps set the educational standards of other healthcare professionals wanting to deliver acupuncture services to their patients using their particular scopes of practice. We should not assume that they would not be willing to utilize our expertise, because that is what we have – expertise. We agreed that we would bring a common core curriculum for acupuncture/TCM up for discussion
at next year’s ESLD. The date has not been set – we will explore options after consultation.
Jasmine Uddin
ETCMA Executive Committee
Education Lead