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Doctorate of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine Course of Study

Track 5: Clinical Training

Integrative Family Medicine Clinic 1-3 (2 credits each)

Pacific College’s clinical training will include a team approach to patient treatment. The Supervisory Team at Pacific’s on-site Integrative Outpatient Clinic will be composed of:

• A licensed acupuncturist recognized as an expert in the Integrative Medicine subject being studied in a given semester,
• A licensed acupuncturist recognized as an expert in the Chinese Classical text being studied in the same semester, and
• A biomedical health care provider, typically a medical doctor, clinical psychologist, or chiropractor as a specialist in the concurrent Integrative Medicine topic.

These professionals will be present during the entire doctoral clinical shift, allowing the doctoral fellow collaborative interaction with multiple medical providers and access to experts in the specialty under study. Throughout the program, the college promotes its doctoral clinic to attract patients within the demographic or conditions being studied, as well as cases related to the Classical text being studied:

Case Review and Mentorship 1-3 (.5 credit each)

The Case Review and Mentorship experience furthers the objective of encouraging practitioners to establish and maintain a life-long dialog with mentors in order to create an expanding community of learners that transcends the barriers of the institution and the doctoral program. It focuses on a dialog between student and mentor about representative cases from the doctoral fellow’s own clinic. Pacific College’s doctoral committee and department chairs believe that this is a key feature to advancing a practitioner’s clinical competence. Through Clinical Rationale reports, the doctoral fellows present to their mentors an extensive background on the case, rationale for the direction of diagnostic inquiry, alternatives to such direction, rationale for treatment plan, alternate treatment plans, etc. In short, it makes the student’s clinical reasoning, i.e., critical thinking transparent and accessible for guidance and critique. This Case Review and Mentorship experience creates a supportive relationship between student and teacher that may last a lifetime.

Integrative Grand Rounds/Theater 1-6 (.5 credit each)

In Integrative Grand Rounds, doctoral fellows or faculty bring patients who represent the Family Medicine or Classics topic being studied that semester. The doctoral cohort receives clinical concentration and participates in case discussion related to these patients.

Specialization Clinical Training 1-6 (2 credits each)

In clinic, doctoral fellows spend their entire six semesters working in clinical shifts related to Family Medicine. They work at Pacific’s on-site facilities under the supervision of a licensed acupuncturists and medical specialists (MD, DC, PhD) who are skilled in the specialization area of Family Medicine.

Supervision & Teaching Skills 1 & 2 (1 credit each)
Teaching Skills 1 (1.5 credits)

The Supervision & Teaching Skills experiences present training in the knowledge and skills required to become a supervisor and teacher for Master’s level students. In addition to receiving instruction in basic clinic administration and management, doctoral fellows perform all the functions of a supervisor for both interns and assistants at the Master’s level, while under the supervision of a doctoral supervisor.

Off-Site Clinical Resources

In addition to its own clinical facilities, Pacific College has agreements with the following organizations to provide facilities for observation, treatment, and/or collaboration:

1. San Diego Hospice
2. University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Free Clinic
3. Seniors’ clinic
4. UCSD Sports Medicine Clinic
5. Sharp Hospital Cardiac Rehabilitation Department
6. Children’s Hospital Integrative Medicine Program

Doctoral Fellows' Private Clinical Resources

Doctoral fellows may receive credit for seeing patients in their own practices about whom they will be required to report extensively for the Case Review and Mentorship clinical courses. This resource and experience is an important one for achieving the transference of knowledge between the program’s classroom and clinical training and the doctoral fellow’s private practice. Special arrangements may be made for fellows who do not have private practices.