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| Top 10 Ways Chinese
Medicine Can Help You, Part 2 |
| by: Brian B. Carter,
MS, LAc |
#6 It's Interactive
Chinese Medicine students learn about how
every aspect of our lives (from bowel
movements to emotions) relate to one
another. We learn to relate to every kind
of person.
Patients Can Push Your Buttons
Patients sometimes push our buttons, and
this give us the opportunity to interact
with ourselves. This is not always easy.
We don't always like what we find! But if
you commit to growth through interaction,
helping, and self-examination, you can
deactivate your buttons, grow past your
limits, and increase your usefulness to
others.
More specifically:
* Some students may realize they came to
medicine for a selfish reason and decide
to put helping others first.
* Some students find they are
people-pleasers and have to learn how to
set boundaries and be more assertive (not
aggressive or passive-aggressive!).
* Others are more confrontational and
aggressive by nature and need to learn
compassion and patience.
* Some are analytical and live in their
heads - they need to learn to focus on
their hearts, gaining rapport and loving
their patients.
Letting Go of Bad Habits
Your bad habits are called into question.
At one point in my training, I went back
to smoking cigarettes. It was a
guilt-laden 6 weeks! It seemed
hypocritical to want to be a healer while
destroying my health. And I felt like I
had to hide it. I quit to be a better
example to my patients, and not to have
to hide anything.
I also had to quit coffee. I knew from
chinese medicine that it wasn't helping
me with my impatience and irritability.
It was worsening my liver qi stagnation!
I had to give it up and take herbs
instead. I had to practice what I preach.
When you know something is bad, it seems
like fun to do it anyway (it gives you
the illusion of power and control). But
eventually you give in to the wisdom, do
what is right, and get to feel even
better. Then you can help others with the
same struggle.
Your Victory can lead to their Victory
Occasionally, your own personal growth
and commitment to self-examination helps
your patients directly. At one point, I
saw a woman with fears of abandonment. I
had just discovered and confronted my own
similar fears 6 months before. She was
able to feel understood and heard and I
was able to offer her solutions,
strength, and hope.
In this way, we are trailblazers-
pioneers in growth. If we remain shallow,
so will our healing interactions. If we
grow deeper, we can lead people to
greater healing.
#7 It Benefits YOU Too!
As was just explained, by helping others
you get to grow too.
Save on Health Care Costs
By giving yourself the know-how and
resources to keep yourself, your friends,
and your family well, you can save money.
One acupuncturist said on an email list
that it saved her family tens of
thousands of dollars in medical costs. It
can be practiced inexpensively - for many
years it treated millions of poor
peasants in China who had no access to
western medicine. Chinese Medicine may be
a large part of the solution to our
healthcare crisis.
Professional Courtesy
Some acupuncturists trade treatments with
one another to stay in good health. I've
received hundreds of treatments from
fellow students, practitioners, and my
wife! It's helped me with anger,
irritability, migraines, light
sensitivity, fear, over-thinking, colds
and flus, and cold sores, among other
things.
#8 It's Traditional and Ancient
It's natural for us to look for
reassurance, especially in dealing with
our health. Biomedicine reassures by
requiring studies of treatments for
safety. Chinese medicine has been tested
for safety and efficacy (especially
acupuncture), and it has thousands of
years of experience behind it to show
what happens to the people it treats. It
is inarguably a positive influence in our
world. Biomedicine, on the other hand, is
only 50 years old, and the full scope of
the side effect phenomenon (short and
long-term) has yet to be grasped.
Not every chinese remedy has been through
the full rigors of the Randomized
Controlled Trial (biomedicine's
gold-standard), but neither have all of
the standard biomedical treatments. The
millions of hours and patient visits
through hundreds of years establish
traditional chinese treatments as safe
and effective. More and more studies are
being done to confirm them and understand
how they work in biomedical terms. I have
written extensively on acupuncture safety
and how it works here.
#9 Its Theories have Broad Implications
Since it integrates many different
disciplines and realms, CM concepts could
be used to reorganize and give insight to
psychology and psychiatry, pharmaceutical
medicine, and sociology. These insights
could guide and suggest future research
in all fields.
The 16 types of the Meyers Briggs
personality typing system have been
somewhat integrated with the 5
constitutions and 6 temperaments of
Chinese Medicine (read about that). This
yields a mind-body medicine that
integrates personality and physical
disease.
From the patient's symptoms, we can
understand their personality and what
might help or hinder their healing from
an emotional and behavioral perspective.
And vice versa, we can look at people's
emotions and behavior and guess what kind
of physical problems they might have.
This makes for a quicker, more
comprehensive medicine, and helps
patients feel understood and confident in
the care they receive.
#10 It can be a Lucrative AND Altruistic
Career
As former AMA president and Medscape CEO
George Lundberg, MD says, medicine walks
a thin line because:
* It is supposed to be altruistic
(selflessly concerned for others), but
* It is also a business (and thus
vulnerable to selfish greed).
We could think of this as the yin and
yang of the medical business.
Insurance Coverage for Acupuncture and
Herbs
Some alternative medicine practitioners
are happy to stay outside of the managed
care system. It's valuable enough to
patients to pay out of their own pockets.
Increasingly, acupuncture is covered by
insurance, HMO's and worker's
compensation boards... sometimes the full
cost of the treatment is covered and
sometimes it isn't. Herbal medicine
usually isn't covered... but patients are
used to buying herbs and vitamins without
reimbursement.
Lundberg suggests that:
* Proven preventive care should be
financed by the government,
* Proven catastrophic care covered by
insurance, and
* Everything else paid for out-of-pocket.
Grossing Gross Amounts of Money -
Acupuncture Salaries
Regardless of who pays, acupuncturists
can expect an annual gross salary of
between $40,000 and$1,000,000. I just
heard about a hospital position for an
acupuncturist in Iowa that was paying
$159 per hour (their medical doctor
rate).
My wife made $100,000 her first year out
of school. One acupuncturist here in San
Diego grosses near $1,000,000 annually
with worker's compensation cases only.
Right now in California, work-comp
reimburses $120 per acupuncture
treatment. Some acupuncturists see 4
patients per hour...
Let's do some quick math on an example.
If you averaged $80 per treatment (which
is achievable), saw 2 patients per hour,
and worked 8 hours per day, 4 days per
week (leaving a day or two to do
paperwork), 48 weeks per year you could
gross $245,760. If you spend 40% of your
gross on overhead, you earn $147,456
before taxes.
What Makes for Making Money
How much you earn depends, as in all
businesses, upon your resourcefulness,
initiative, marketing savvy, and - most
importantly - the quality of your
service. As in all service businesses,
you must be good at what you do.
The Freedom to Give
Making all that money frees us to be
altruistic. A lot of volunteer care is
given by acupuncturists. During
"9/11,", New York students from
the Pacific Institute of Chinese Medicine
treated the firefighters. Likewise,
students in San Diego from the Pacific
College of Chinese Medicine treat Viet
Nam veterans every year at a special
gathering. Of dozens of services, the
acupuncture is among the top 3 requested.
You can take on a number of low or no-fee
cases in your own practice. It's up to
you.
#11 - There are so many options
It's a varied profession.
In California, acupuncturists are
physicians and can be a patient's primary
care practitioner - they are
professionals on par with MD's,
chiropractors, and psychologists. As an
acupuncturist...
* You could work with an MD, DO, DC,
psychologist, psychiatrist, or massage
therapist.
* You can work in a high-class office
wearing a suit. You could practice at
home wearing your slippers.
* You could do all acupuncture, or all
herbs, or both.
* You could treat just sports injuries,
or workers compensation, or acupuncture
face-lifts, or gynecology, or psychiatry,
or do it all!
* There is room for new schools all over
the U.S. - there are still states without
any Chinese Medicine schools.
* You could practice in California (where
1/3 of us practice), or you could have an
'insta-practice' in many places all over
the U.S. that don't have access to
Chinese Medicine.
* You could teach or be a clinic
supervisor at an established school.
* You could see loads of patients, or
spend 2 hours with each one. One
herbalist in China sees 80 patients per
day. You have to be good to get herbs
right- to get them right and see that
many patients per day, you have to be
stellar!
* You could create a business selling
products to the 20,000 or so
acupuncturists in the U.S. (even more
internationally).
* You can write books and teach
continuing education seminars.
There are so many options!
About the Author
Acupuncturist, herbalist, and medical
professor Brian B. Carter founded the
alternative health megasite The Pulse of
Oriental Medicine
(http://www.PulseMed.org/). He is the
author of the book "Powerful Body,
Peaceful Mind: How to Heal Yourself with
Foods, Herbs, and Acupressure"
(November, 2004). Brian speaks on radio
across the country, and has been quoted
and interviewed by Real Simple, Glamour,
and ESPN magazines.
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***DISCLAIMER: The material presented on this website
is for informational purposes only and should not be
considered medical advice. Consult your physician for the
proper medical treatment for your condition.***
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