Eric

My favorite point is #8 “Create an Online Presence”. People are looking for safe, effective, natural alternatives to incorporate into (or utilize instead of) conventional medical recommendations. TCM practitioners have great knowledge and information that can be easily shared on their clinic websites. With a little effort and some basic web building tools, even a novice (like me!) can get valuable information out there for the public to see and benefit from.
It’s a win-win: People get great information about Chinese medicine, and practitioners get traffic to their website, which results in new patients and customers for their ebooks, ezines, and other digital media, thereby boosting the entire profession!

Lisa Hanfileti, LAc
http://www.insights-for-acupuncturists.com/website-marketing.html

I don’t think you should regret it at all. I totally hear what you’re saying.. and believe me, we have our share of Qi huggers.

One of our professors in particular is known for being a bit harsh with folks of this sort. He’s gained quite a reputation for being… um… less than totally cuddly? But I absolutely respect his position and yours.

Sometimes I worry that people are going to think that about my site! I try not to give out too much advice, and try not to make it too Qi hugg-ish. :D

I think it’s vital to avoid mixing too much unproven new-agey claptrap in with the well tested theory present in the Classical texts and even in some of the TCM theory.

Thanks for mentioning it.

Eric

#11 Actively discourage CM students/practitioners with harmful habits, practices, and ideas from propagating such things (i.e. do not suffer fools gladly).

Admittedly this can make you the Simon Cowell of CM in a hurry, but I think it is necessary though distasteful to those of us who don’t particularly relish conflict. I don’t know what NCNM is like but at MY school we have a huge population of people with half-baked ideas that are usually ‘esoteric’ and New-Agey and are based even less on the reliable root of CM than the lip-service TCM that is being taught. I refer to them as Qi Huggers. These folks-in their good natured ignorance-go boldly plunging forth dispensing advice and dictums that don’t have any real support by the Classical theory or even the current TCM theory. I think it is the duty of right thinking practitioners who, upon being informed of a really bad idea, to tell the person “Look, that’s a really bad idea and you shouldn’t be doing that” or “you really shouldn’t be handing out advice and treatments and acting like you are a licensed doctor because you aren’t and you don’t know what you’re doing yet.”

Anything we can do to prevent our new doctors from doing harm the second they get their hands on their first patient is a good thing, as we need as spotless of an image as we can muster.