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!

Other Situations that are Helped by Herbal Formulas:

Quitting HRT… Instead of just stopping cold (or hot, as case may be), an herbal formula such as zhi bai di huang wan may be given weeks or months ahead of time. Then patient's system is more balanced when HRT is stopped, and rebound symptoms are less likely and less severe.

Breaking Antibiotic Cycle… Some patients perpetually take round after round of antibiotics. Approaches based on Shang Han Lun (Cold Damage Classic) such as use of herb formula Xiao Chai Hu Tang (Minor Bupleurum) have been known to get patient well and away from constant need for antibiotics.

Complementing Diuretic Therapy… While Chinese Herbs should never be used to add to diuretic effect of concurrent drug therapy, they can boost system. Diuretic drugs reduce excess fluids, but they do not solve underlying deficiency. Herbal formulas can be prescribed to strengthen Spleen and Kidney systems.

Quitting SSRI Anti-Depressants… Of course this can be dangerous, and should be done with a psychiatrist and an herbalist. Herbs such as St. John's Wort (SJW) could be used as a cushion while quitting. SJW does not replace SSRI's… studies show that it must have some other mode of action. Herbal formulas are better anyway. See a Chinese Herbalist.

Quitting Corticosteroids... As we saw in positive interaction #4 above, herbal formulas can be used in conjunction with corticosteroid treatment (for conditions like lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, primary nephrotic syndrome, etc.). A chinese herbal formula, Bupleurum and Hoelen Combination (Chai Ling Tang) can be used for withdrawal from corticosteroid therapy. Subsequently, it can be used in place of steroids for continued treatment.

General Rules for Taking Herbs, Vitamins and Drugs:

Take them at different times. Most drugs are taken with meals to limit Stomach irritation. Take herbs between meals (at least 1 hour before and after a meal…2-3 hours would be best) for optimal digestion.

Don't take ascorbic (vitamin C) or salicylic acid (aspirin) at same time as herbs. The acids will neutralize many of saponins. Vit C will alter and neutralize herbs… so don't drink any orange or citrus juices with herbs either.

Don't take herbs that are supposed to do same thing as a drug you're on. For example, don't take blood movers like dan shen or dang gui with warfarin. Don't take diuretics like fu ling with diuretic drugs.

You can take an herbal formula to complement drugs you have to take. This can reduce or eliminate side effects. It really requires a professional… see a Chinese Medicine practitioner. This works well in chemotherapy to protect body. However, in Hepatitis C, interferon/ribavirin treatment requires some of uncomfortable symptoms of fever and feeling ill to work. Stopping those side effects with herbs has been known to inhibit drugs' effects. In case of Hep C, you can opt for Chinese Herbal therapies instead of western drug cocktail.

References: Kelvin Chan, Lily Cheung. Interactions Between Chinese Herbal Medicinal Products and Orthodox Drugs. Dunitz Martin Ltd. 2000. (Most of positive drug-herb studies mentioned above were summarized in this source. At least one of them came from Beijing Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine.) Miller LG. Herbal medicinals: selected clinical considerations focusing on known or potential drug-herb interactions. Arch Intern Med. 1998 Nov 9;158(20):2200-11. Review. Dharmananda, S. The Interactions of Herbs and Drugs. June, 2001. Institute for Traditional Medicine. http://www.itmonline.org.