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The Point- Volume II, Issue 4 What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been by Ryan Altman This issue marks the two year anniversary of the publication of The Point. These few years have marked an extremely active time in our Student Council’s history. We’ve consistently provided quality educational guest lectures as well as a variety of social events to our students. We’ve introduced a vending machine filled with healthier snack-food options. We’ve created a Used Book Sale for the students to get some of their investment into their textbooks back each term. There has been significant progress made towards bringing affordable health care to every student and we continue to work with Alliance Health to individualize student plans. We’ve begun to coordinate ideas and political actions with Student Council’s around the State and across the country. Finally, we’ve created a large-scale community outreach event, the San Diego Healing Arts Festival, to bring an introduction of Acupuncture and integrative medicine to the general public. I want to thank everyone for making these years so productive and encourage the future of our medicine, the continuing students, to take a more active role in the Student Council. Please continue and expand upon the work done. Don’t dream it, be it! Legislative Changes: Worker’s Comp and More
by Karen Rohrbaugh Worker’s Comp: Acupuncturists and Chiropractors are no longer able to be pre-designated as personal physicians to injured workers. This means that we cannot be the first practitioner who treats the patient and is responsible for opening and closing the case, unless we are on the list of physicians a specific company provides to their workers. (This is something an acupuncturist would offer/request of a company.) This change does not affect our ability to treat injured workers covered by Worker’s Comp once they have been seen by an MD. The MD can recommend acupuncture to the patient while s/he is treating the patient or the patient can request acupuncture. In addition, after the first 30 days following the injury, the patient has the right to request that s/he switch to a practitioner of his/her choice which can be an acupuncturist, (Note:Many acupuncturists prefer not to be the primary treating physician due to the paperwork and responsibility involved.) Employers are required to pay workers comp insurance on all employees. When an employee is injured on the job s/he reports his/her injury to the employer. The employer gives him/her a list of physicians to choice from. Most patient’s regular health insurance will not cover an injury that is a result of employment. The new fee schedule reimbursement rate was lowered. The fee for electro-acupuncture is $70.11 and acupuncture is $52. Additional treatments such as heat, myofascial release, exercise therapy, etc. can be added on to the bill, so the above figure is not the payment cap. The good news: Acupuncturists are still considered physicians by Workers Comp. There was talk that this status would be taken away. If you would like to read the full text of Senate Bill 899 regarding the legislative impact on acupuncture and oriental medicine, it can be found at www.leginfo.ca.gov. Little Hoover Commission: The LHC is an independent oversight committee currently assessing the scope of practice, educational requirements, and testing standards for acupuncturists in the state of California. Please refer to www.lhc.ca.gov to see what has been recently said about these issues. Their report is due in September. Herbs: to get the latest news on the regulations of Ma Huang, Ban Xia and other herbs, please refer to the Chinese Herb Academy’s website and click on Political Action Alerts. Get informed and get involved by joining a professional TCM association, writing to your elected officials and voting for candidates who support acupuncture and oriental medicine. The PCOM website has a lengthy list of professional organizations to join. Most offer discounted student rates. Finally, don’t be shy about talking about this fantastic medicine. This is truly a small city/small world and most people find our profession very interesting and cutting edge. Talk about the benefits of TCM to the person you sit next to on your next flight or stand next to in line at the grocery store. He or she might be the son or daughter of an elected official or a CEO some day. This type of personal contact is very powerful and effective. We are a small group of professionals, less than 20,000 in the U.S, and it is critical for us to develop a strong, unified voice.
PCOM Students Study in China by Jim Rohr This spring break a group of sixteen students traveled with Professor Tantan Huang to Chengdu, China, for a three week course of study. The program at the TCM Teaching Hospital of Chengdu consisted of hospital rounds in the morning and then lectures in the afternoons. Everyone’s experiences in the hospital were different, with myriad Departments and supervisors available to us. Some of the selections included acupuncture, tui na, and herbs for pediatrics, oncology, diabetes, gastrointestinal, cardiology, dermatology, and respiratory disorders. In the afternoon, the lecture topics included bi-syndrome, gynecology, and a three part series on diabetes. As a “training and learning experience”, the trip was unparalleled. While we have to be concerned with explaining the function and relevance of TCM to our patients in the United States, those efforts are stunningly absent in China. Also, in a three-hour shift in the herbology department, we would see between 18-25 patients. This is a stark contrast to seeing 9 patients in a really great week at the PCOM clinic. This was Professor Huang’s second trip in as many years to Chengdu with PCOM students. Professor Huang did his training at this same hospital and has devoted a lot of time and patience to give PCOM students an opportunity to study there as well. This year Professor Huang also arranged an optional week-long extension trip to Tibet. As Chengdu is the primary stop-over for the Chinese to reach Lhasa, Tibet was just a few hours away by plane. Those few days in Tibet gave our group a time to relax, to visit various monasteries and holy places, and to try some yak meat. I cannot recommend studying in China highly enough. Seeing TCM practiced in its “native” context has helped me to put trust in the medicine. It was not until I stepped foot into the bustling hospital, seeing hundreds of patients waiting outside treatment rooms, smelling herbs being decocted, and witnessing the respect the patients had for their TCM practitioners, that I began to dream of the possibilities for the future of TCM in the United States. On behalf of the entire group, I would like to thank the Student Council for their support of this trip, as well as Professor Huang, because without him, this trip would never have happened. Xie Xie!
Saying Yes to Helping Others by Stefanie Pitthan
San Diego County has several great places to hike year-round. During the warm summer months, Torrey Pines’ trails offer beautiful views, maintained trails, and they are within minutes of PCOM. On July 17th, we’ll take a little hike there. It’s really more like a nice walk down the trails to the beach. This will be a great opportunity to get to know some of your classmates and take a half-day break from your studies. Feel free to invite friends. We will meet at the PCOM parking lot, in front of the Library, on Saturday morning from 8:45-9:00 and car pool to Torrey Pines’ golf course. We’ll leave at 9:00 am SHARP and should be back by about 1:00pm.) From the golf course we will walk our way down the trails to the beach, splash around, take in the views, have a snack (Bring your own water and snack), then walk back to the cars and return to PCOM. We’ll have a flyer with more details on the student council bulletin board with a sign up sheet at least a week before the hike. We look forward to seeing everyone. If you have any questions feel free to contact Randy Sorenson.
The Semi-Secret Art of Ta-Kie Shu's Mistranslation by Mitch Harris Recently I have begun to “sort of“ learn the Chinese language. By “sort of”, I mean I do not intend to learn the language completely, or even enough to surpass that which any three year old could achieve. I aim to learn only enough so that I may become an expert in the art of erroneous translation, mispronunciation, and basic grammatical carnage. This task is not as easy as it may be supposed - as many years of study are required to make the act happen in beautiful disharmony with its surrounding syntax. That creator of this almost secrete art was called Ta-Kie Shu and if we listen closely, his legacy lives on within the walls of PCOM. Ta- Kie Shu lived during a mildly troubling time in China simply called the Ouch Period, which lasted only a few months somewhere in-between two other more important time periods. Ta–Kie began life as a simple and clumsy cobbler who would hit his hands so often with his hammer he would blurt out a litany of gleefully nonsensical Chinese sentences and phrases. It got so bad that as he grew older, legend grew around him that he was actually a French man who came from Holland and spoke horrible Chinese. When the King heard of this strange cobbler, he sent for him, but the guards bearing the summons would never return. One after another they would go missing, until one day the King went to see Ta-Kie himself. Nothing could prepare the King for what he next saw. The guards he had sent were all sitting before Ta–Kie, who stood and recited streams of sentences made out of grammatical structures that no one knew existed, words with completely original pronunciations, phrases in total disregard for tonal qualities, and ideas that made little to no sense. One sentence after another, the guards would stare blankly and laugh confusedly at the wondrous mistranslation of their own language. Eventually some of the guards who had been ill soon felt better after listening to Ta-Kie. Soon the King allowed Ta-Kie into the Imperial Court so he could continue to heal those in need, or to simply amuse other dignitaries who would try to bet upon his place of origin, (although none of them could understand Ta-Kie’s response to their question). One day Ta-Kie told the King something that translates loosely as “Table-clothing for canary bubble”. Having been around the mystic so long, the King almost understood what he meant. Soon he let Ta-Kie leave the kingdom and travel to other far off lands to teach people this gifts of unintentionally mucking up a language, whether one’s own or another’s. This tradition lives on as it traveled East and West. Today you can peruse through the library at PCOM and you might be able to spot examples of Ta-Kie’s lineage. Just last week I found a sentence in a book about Auriculotherapy that claimed a point function was due to its attachment to the “vegetable nerve” in the human body. And it appears the authors of Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion worship the more convoluted aspects of the Tai-Kie art form. Listen in the halls of PCOM to American students reading off herbal formulas with a swinging Texas drawl or nasal East coast bellow to a bewildered Chinese professor. Or hear a native Chinese speaker trying to tell their classes about the “Inn and Young” of TCM. We all seem to live in Ta-Kie’s shadow, with a greater and lesser degree of language certainty. All I can hope with my new study of this semi-secret art is that with enough perseverance, I may write a sentence as confusing to native speakers as the great Ta-Kie Shu himself…as he once said to the King when he left the Imperial Kingdom forever: “Here today-banana shorts!” (Ed. Note: “Bagels swimming through crazy-glue laced anhedonic nightmares!” I think my refrigerator door is possessed by his spirit! Is this contagious? Support group for victims and their families will meet on the second Thursday of every month with an ‘R’ in it at the Lewis Carroll branch of the SD Public Library)
The End to Hostilities by Joe Hlebica (in honor of Chief Joseph) The cradle of civilization The fight for peace The end to hostilities will be found
Stepping into the universe trembling,
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