Since then, in practice:

A jet-skier had a severe case of hives for 6 months, had been to many MD's, had spent about $11,000, and had gotten no relief. He couldn't sleep comfortably, work, or be out in sun. Doctors were ready to admit him to UCSD. He came to see me, and after 2 acupuncture treatments and 2 days of a 7-day herb formula, his skin was completely clear. When I lasted talked to him, he was getting ready to race in world jet-ski finals at Lake Havasu. Oh, and his entire treatment cost less than $200.

A 9-month pregnant woman came to me because her baby was facing wrong direction. Her MD wanted to physically turn baby from outside, or put her through surgery, cost, and scar of a C-section. I heated an acupuncture point on each of her little toes 10 times for 3 days, and baby flipped. She was ecstatic and thanked me profusely.

Several of my patients have had weakness and nerve tingling in their fingers that starts deep inside shoulder (supraspinatus nerve impingement). The only alternative is surgery. This usually takes about 8 acupuncture treatments to cure.

Healed Healers Healing You

Many Chinese Medicine students decide to become an CM physicians after being significantly healed (and impressed) by it. About one-third of them come to profession for this reason.

A friend of mine had lupus and was treated by MD's with steroids- she gained 40 pounds. She was told to expect to live only another 10 years or so. She tried chinese herbal medicine, and it put her lupus into remission. She was so impressed that she decided to make chinese medicine her profession.

# 4 It's Simple AND Complex

At first you are captivated by simple poetry of CM - but in time you are nearly overwhelmed by its depth and complexity.

The Advantages of Simplicity Option

You can diagnose and treat disease at varying levels of complexity. You can always go back to simpler perspective if you get lost in complexity- this is advantage of CM- at times, MD diagnoses are complex and elaborate, but they lack a treatment to address them. Western Medicine is great at describing in minute detail what is wrong with you, but it can't always fix problem.

Nearly Limitless Complexity and Variation

CM also can be complex- there are 29 or so symptom-patterns which manifest in one or more of 12 organ-systems, and there are dozens of pathomechanisms involved by which pathogens and organ dysfunctions affect one another. External influences can manifest in different ways in different people. We trace this by taking into account individual's constitutional excesses and deficiencies. There are thousands of herbs; about 400 are used commonly, and each has 3-4 functions. There are hundreds of acupuncture points, each with functions and empirical indications. These are only basics- there is a vast amount of variation within Chinese Medicine... but just these basics map out a matrix of thousands of relationships and insights.

#5 - it's Intuitive AND Intellectual

Knowing Hands

The 360 or so basic acupuncture points (and there are 100's more extra points) each have a specific anatomical location. Clinically, however, we often treat "ah-shi" point (literally "that's it" - most sensitive area nearby). Ah-shi points are found with help from patient, but acupunturists often find that they "knew" where point was (by feel) even before patient said, "yeah, that's it." Massage therapists experience this too. Patients often say, "How did you know it hurt there?" or "I didn't even know that was sore!"

What are these "knowing" hands? Intuition? A learned kinesthetic wisdom? Both? This goes back to #2, "It's Mysterious."

Both Sides of Your Brain

Most students of western medicine choose their profession for three reasons:

* They want to help people * They're good at science (left-brained) * They want to make good money * The typical CM student, on other hand, is more right-brained, and less money-oriented. In fact, practice management seminars for acupuncturists often focus on idea that "it's ok to charge your patients money!"

This distinction may change as mainstream conception of CM changes; left brain facts and theories are indispensable to practice of CM. As was said in #4, "It's simple AND complex," there is quite are quite a bit of facts and theories to learn, and integrating them in practice takes good analytical skills. And it's becoming clear that CM practitioners can make a great living (see #10 below).

In a way, practice of CM is more balanced than western medical practice or massage because it requires usage of both left and right brains. Biomedicine can be too intellectual (left-brained). Massage can be too simple. In Chinese Medicine, there is an art to:

* Pulse-taking * Communicating with patients about issues that include mental, emotional and physical (in biomedicine, patients are often sent to specialists who can deal with only one part of them. CM in U.S. attracts complex patients.) * Integrating all data into a comprehensive diagnosis (CM diagnosis is more syndrome-oriented and includes complex, often non-linear phenomena), and * Choosing an applying a number of different treatment modalities.

Continued in Part 2!

From 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 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 yin and yang of medical business.

Insurance Coverage for Acupuncture and Herbs

Some alternative medicine practitioners are happy to stay outside of 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 full cost of 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 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 - 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 Pacific Institute of Chinese Medicine treated firefighters. Likewise, students in San Diego from Pacific College of Chinese Medicine treat Viet Nam veterans every year at a special gathering. Of dozens of services, acupuncture is among 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 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 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 20,000 or so acupuncturists in U.S. (even more internationally). * You can write books and teach continuing education seminars.

There are so many options!