- What happens if California adopts criteria above
what NOMAA requires?
- Why is the organization of the cardiovascular
system important?
- Is the pathology under Oriental medical sciences
OM pathology or Western pathology?
- Is diagnosis under Oriental medical sciences
OM diagnosis or Western diagnosis?
- There is a considerable amount of study under
Oriental medical sciences, should we make this
requirement
higher than 800 hours?
- Why is the flavor of herbs and food listed under
the herbal requirements?
1.
Every school has to comply with the minimum standards
established by each state where the school is located.
So,
two possible situations can occur, one would be
where schools are required to teach more hours
than an accrediting agency's requirements if the
state requirements are higher, or two where schools
are required to teach more hours than the state
requires, because the accrediting agency hour requirements
are higher. Consequently, the higher hour standard
prevails. In New Mexico the state requires 2400
hours training for OMD licensing although the schools
there are already providing 2700-2800 hours of
instruction. If these schools seek and obtain NOMAA
approval they would have to increase their hours
to 4000.
Presently, California is in the process of implementing
a 3000 hour standard, which the majority of better
schools already meet. The Task Force that has long
toiled on this effort has put forth their recommendation
on the 3,000 program. This recommendation consists
of 2050 hours of didactic instruction and 950 hours
of clinical clerkship. Ideally, the NOMAA standard
for didactic hours should be consistent with the
2050 goal, but 450-550 additional hours would be
added to the clinical clerkship. There are only
slight differences between the Task Force and NOMAA
on the 2050 hour didactic hours. The main difference
is 100 hours on the biomedical studies. As I noted
in Table 1, most schools I compared (and by the
way to out-of-state school in Table 1 was not from
New Mexico) are basically around 450 hours consistent
with what NOMAA recommends. The Task Force recommendation
is 350 hour which is 50 hours below the present
California standard. I think the Task Force recommendation
probably needs to be increased. If the Task Force
increased their biomedical hours to 400 and shifted
the practice management course as a non-credit
elective status, they would have 2050 didactic
and 950 clinical clerkship. If NOMAA biomedical
science stay at 450 hours, that is okay, especially
since this is an OMD program. It is okay for the
accreditation standards to be higher than the State.
In this case the difference is very slight, especially
if the Task Force recommendation is 400 hours.
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2. Why is
the organization of the cardiovascular system important?
The reason the Chinese view of the cardiovascular
system organization is important is the idea of
specific vessels supplying discrete superficial
areas of the body as well and the internal organs
and regions is a unique OM physiological discovery
that provides an explanation on the importance
of the formation of neurovascular nodes (acupoints)
in the superficial regions and their somatovisceral
relationships. To teach students acupoint locations
and their therapeutic indications is very difficult
if the students have no understanding of the underlying
neurovascular relationships. These main distribution
vessels (jingmai) also supply the longitudinally
muscular distributions as well and are important
to understanding the musculoskeletal system and
treatment approaches.
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3.
Is the pathology under Oriental medical sciences
OM pathology or Western pathology?
Here the concept of pathology is the OM view except
it is explained in modern terms that can be understood
and appreciated by any medical professional. The
OM model is much more integrated in that it considers
the total human situation involving external and
internal factors, including emotions and vitalities.
Now medical doctors are making discoveries covered
by the OM pathogenic model with respect to the
neuroendocrine system and behavior involved in
health and disease. Soon they will be making claims
they discovered something new, just as they are
in the process of reinventing acupuncture and now
condemning acupuncture taught using energy-meridian
concepts as being metaphysical or a religion. Western
pathology is studied in biomedical sciences which
can then be correlated with the OM perspective
during the OM medical science studies.
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4. Is diagnosis
under Oriental medical sciences OM diagnosis or
Western diagnosis? Here diagnosis refers to OM diagnosis with western
diagnosis covered in western pathophysiology and
the Clinical sciences part of the program.
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5. There is
a considerable amount of study under Oriental medical
sciences, should we make this
requirement
higher than 800 hours? The main goal of NOMAA is to establish minimum
educational standard for the OMD degree that will
be applied to the entire United States. Hence,
it is important to not push any category of study
to what may be considered above a certain minimum.
I appreciate that some schools may already be offering
more than 800 hours for their OM sciences (not
including the herbs). The Task Force is recommending
800 hours and NOMAA thinks this could be as low
as 750 hours and still meet a minimum standard.
If we now require 850-900 hours some schools may
actually develop more efficient ways of teaching
these topics in the future and could accomplish
this with fewer hours, but be stuck with a minimum
standard that is too high.
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6. Why is
the flavor of herbs and food listed under the herbal
requirements?
With regard to the comment
on flavors, perhaps the word "food" could
be deleted. However, since the principle pharmacological
and physiological
effects of OM herbs respectively depends on their
temperament (e.g. hot, cold, warm, cool, etc.)
and flavor, then these aspects must be included
in the study of OM herbs.
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