This has probably been reported elsewhere, but I just noticed that as of 2013 or so, John Amaro’s IAMA is awarding the title “Dipl.Ac. (IAMA)” for a couple hundred hours of study. By contrast, the federally-accredited NCCAOM has for years used the title “Dipl.Ac. (NCCAOM)”, commonly shortened to “Dipl.Ac.”, to indicate National Board Certification for licensed acupuncturists who have studied two or three thousand hours. Gee — no chance of any confusion there!
http://www.iama.edu/Diplomate/Diplomate.htm
(Classy website, isn’t it.)
If you don’t have three or four years to train in acupuncture and TCM and get your Dipl. Ac. from the NCCAOM, don’t worry, because now you can get one from the IAMA by taking two of their 105-hour courses and writing 30 clinical case studies.
The NCCAOM is the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, and is federally accredited to certify trained L.Ac.’s. The IAMA is “The International Academy of Medical Acupuncture Inc.”, which offers short courses in acupuncture to chiropractors and others, and conveniently offers its own certification as well.
It’s one thing to engage in a political turf war over practice, and pay lip service to “medical acupuncture” vs. “traditional acupuncture”, and how awesome the former supposedly is with a fraction of the training. It’s another to outright mislead the public by using virtually the same title!
I don’t know if this is illegal, but it’s plainly deceptive and unethical.
If “medical acupuncture” is so awesome, why should its practitioners need a credential that mimics the one used by fully trained L.Ac.’s?
How exactly is the public supposed to decide which group they like better when one group is disguising itself as the other?
This is just ridiculous and unethical. It reminds me of Breaking Bad, where Walter White’s competitors dyed their inferior meth blue in order to imitate his product. It’s a pretty good analogy, actually: it’s a deceptive hustle, and comes from a position of weakness, not strength.
Get the word out!
