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337510
Trends in Continuing Education Course Offerings and its influence on AOM Profession – an analysis of CA Acupuncture Board Approved Courses


Monday, November 2, 2015

Eric (Lung-Cheng) Hsiao, PhD, College of Eastern Medicine, Southern California University of Health Sciences, Whittier, CA
Sivarama Prasad Vinjamury, MD (Ayurveda), MAOM, MPH, College of Eastern Medicine, Southern California University of Health Sciences, Whittier, CA
Lawrence (Lung-Sheng) Hsiao, MD, MS, College of Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine, Southern California University of Health Sciences, Whittier, CA
Background

 

In 2011, we conducted a study on the Influence of Continue education (CE) courses on AOM profession and indicated besides pain management there are varieties of topics among CE courses offered. Internal medicine; advanced acupuncture & Traditional Chinese Medicine theory and diagnosis, Women’s health, Herbs and Practice Management are popular topics.    

Objective

The purpose of this paper is to compare the difference of CE courses offered for AOM profession in year 2011 and 2014, and identify the overall trends in CE course offerings.

Methods

All CE courses approved by California Acupuncture Board as of December 2014 to be offered until June 2015 were retrieved and categorized under various topics such as pain, gynecology, cosmetic acupuncture, integrative medicine, and health promotion. The CE courses could be online learning or live in person activities.  Courses, which are repeated within the next 6 months at different venues are counted as only one. The broad topics were then compared to the topics in 2011 to identify if there are any changing trends.

Results:

More than 2400 courses were approved by December to offer by June 2015. The topics included Internal Chinese Medicine, TCM pediatric, TCM Geriatrics, TCM Women’s health, TCM Men’s health, TCM Immunology, TCM psychology, TCM pain management, Acupressure, Different acupuncture technique, Moxa, TCM infertility, practice management and Qi Gong. The list was very much similar to what we found in 2011. Online learning activities have increased in 2014-15. Integrative Medicine courses are a new trend, but health promotion and disease prevention courses are still limited.

Conclusion:

Our analysis indicates that pain management courses still play a major role, but internal medicine, women’s health and psychology are also popular topics. We believe that these topics have been chosen based on profession and patients demand and they also represent the scope of practice among AOM profession. It is also important to critically evaluate the effectiveness of web-based CE course offerings and perhaps its influence on AOM practice.

Learning Areas:

Ethics, professional and legal requirements

Learning Objectives:
Identify the trends in CEU course offerings Analyze the probable influence of CEU courses on TCM practice

Keyword(s): Alternative and Complementary Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am the principal investigator of this project and am primarily responsible for collecting and analyzing the data.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 3208.0: Epidemiology in Integrative Complementary and Traditional Health Practices