Acupuncture and Physiotherapists - A Personal View
Val Hopwood EJOM Vol. 6 No. 2 (2009)
This article, written by a well-known physiotherapist and acupuncturist, traces the growing adoption of acupuncture by physiotherapists in the UK, dating back to 1982 when it was approved by the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists as an adjunctive skill for pain relief. She outlines the development of the educational frameworks which have enabled this process to the point where there are now nearly 6,000 UK physios who use some form of acupuncture. The tensions between physios and professional acupuncturists which arose during this process are mentioned. She argues, however, that it has been good not just for patients and for the physios themselves, but also, somewhat more controversially, for professional acupuncturists as well, because it has increased the respectability of the therapy and facilitated its inclusion in National Health Service provision.
TCM in Germany - Views from Four Leading Practitioners
Helmut Magel EJOM Vol. 6 No. 2 (2009)
This article – devised, compiled and edited in German by Helmut Magel and then translated and edited by EJOM’s Friedrich Staebler – presents the views of four of Germany’s leading TCM practitioners on issues relating to the context and current status of TCM in their country. All four practitioners belong to the AGTCM (Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Klassische Akupunktur und Traditionelle Chinesische Medizin – Association for Classical Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine), the German equivalent of the British Acupuncture Council. Representatives of the medical acupuncturists who were contacted and invited to express their views chose not to participate.
