Acupuncturist Diagnose, treat, and prevent disorders by stimulating specific acupuncture points within the body using acupuncture needles. May also use cups, nutritional supplements, therapeutic massage, acupressure, and other alternative health therapies.
Acupuncturist is Also Know as
In different settings, Acupuncturist is titled as
- Acupuncture Physician
- Acupuncture Provider
- Acupuncturist
- Chinese Medical Doctor
- Herbalist
- Licensed Acupuncturist (LAC)
- Oriental Medicine Provider
- Traditional Chinese Medicine Doctor
- Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioner
Education and Training of Acupuncturist
Acupuncturist is categorized in Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed
Experience Required for Acupuncturist
Extensive skill, knowledge, and experience are needed for these occupations. Many require more than five years of experience. For example, surgeons must complete four years of college and an additional five to seven years of specialized medical training to be able to do their job.
Education Required for Acupuncturist
Most of these occupations require graduate school. For example, they may require a master's degree, and some require a Ph.D., M.D., or J.D. (law degree).
Degrees Related to Acupuncturist
- Bachelor in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine
- Associate Degree Courses in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine
- Masters Degree Courses in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine
Training Required for Acupuncturist
Employees may need some on-the-job training, but most of these occupations assume that the person will already have the required skills, knowledge, work-related experience, and/or training.
Related Ocuupations
Some Ocuupations related to Acupuncturist in different industries are
- Naturopathic Physicians
- Chiropractors
- Massage Therapists
- Emergency Medicine Physicians
- Cardiologists
- General Internal Medicine Physicians
- Nurse Practitioners
- Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physicians
- Family Medicine Physicians
- Allergists and Immunologists
- Pediatric Surgeons
- Orthopedic Surgeons, Except Pediatric
- Psychiatrists
- Obstetricians and Gynecologists
- Dermatologists
- Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurses
- Recreational Therapists
- Neurologists
- Urologists
- Pediatricians, General
What Do Acupuncturist do?
- Formulate herbal preparations to treat conditions considering herbal properties, such as taste, toxicity, effects of preparation, contraindications, and incompatibilities.
- Maintain and follow standard quality, safety, environmental, and infection control policies and procedures.
- Maintain detailed and complete records of health care plans and prognoses.
- Dispense herbal formulas and inform patients of dosages and frequencies, treatment duration, possible side effects, and drug interactions.
- Consider Western medical procedures in health assessment, health care team communication, and care referrals.
- Adhere to local, state, and federal laws, regulations, and statutes.
- Treat patients using tools, such as needles, cups, ear balls, seeds, pellets, or nutritional supplements.
- Educate patients on topics, such as meditation, ergonomics, stretching, exercise, nutrition, the healing process, breathing, or relaxation techniques.
- Evaluate treatment outcomes and recommend new or altered treatments as necessary to further promote, restore, or maintain health.
- Assess patients' general physical appearance to make diagnoses.
- Collect medical histories and general health and lifestyle information from patients.
- Apply moxibustion directly or indirectly to patients using Chinese, non-scarring, stick, or pole moxa.
- Apply heat or cold therapy to patients using materials, such as heat pads, hydrocollator packs, warm compresses, cold compresses, heat lamps, or vapor coolants.
- Analyze physical findings and medical histories to make diagnoses according to Oriental medicine traditions.
- Develop individual treatment plans and strategies.
- Treat medical conditions, using techniques such as acupressure, shiatsu, or tuina.
- Insert needles to provide acupuncture treatment.
- Identify correct anatomical and proportional point locations based on patients' anatomy and positions, contraindications, and precautions related to treatments, such as intradermal needles, moxibustion, electricity, guasha, or bleeding.
Qualities of Good Acupuncturist
- Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
- Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
- Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
- Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
- Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
- Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
- Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
- Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
- Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
- Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
- Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
- Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
- Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
- Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
- Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
- Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
- Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
- Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
- Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
- Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
- Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
- Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
- Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
- Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
- Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
- Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
- Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
- Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
- Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
- Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
- Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
- Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
- Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
- Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
- Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
- Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
- Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
- Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
- Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
- Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
- Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
- Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
- Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
- Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
- Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
- Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
- Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
- Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
- Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
- Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
Tools Used by Acupuncturist
- Acupuncture ear probes
- Acupuncture needle guide tubes
- Acutonics tuning forks
- Adenoid sphygmomanometers
- Adson forceps
- Air ion testers
- Angle tip forceps
- Autoclave sterilizers
- Babinski hammers
- Bandage scissors
- Biohazard containers
- Blood pressure monitors
- Buck neurological hammers
- Crystal probes
- Digital electronic acupunctoscopes
- Digital heat lamps
- Dressing forceps
- Dual head stethoscopes
- Ear needles
- Ear tacks
- Electroacupuncture stimulation units
- Electronic muscle stimulators
- Filiform acupuncture needles
- Foot rollers
- Four sensor probes
- Glass cupping sets
- Gua sha tools
- Hand exercise balls
- Hand rollers
- Handheld digital thermometers
- Hemostat clamps
- Herb grinders
- Hydrocollator units
- Infrared heat lamps
- Intradermal acupuncture needles
- Ion pumps
- Ionizers
- Lancet needles
- Laser pens
- Lockable forceps
- Magnetic cupping sets
- Magnetic finger rings
- Manaka hammers
- Massage chairs
- Massage tables
- Microcurrent systems
- Mineral wave lamps
- Moxa boxes
- Moxa burners
- Moxa burning bowls
- Moxa cans
- Moxa extinguishers
- Moxa spoons
- Needle inserters
- Needle plungers
- Operating scissors
- Otoscopes
- Pen probes
- Plastic cupping sets
- Portable heat lamps
- Positioning bolsters
- Press needles
- Pulsed magnetic field generators
- Rolling drums
- Scissor pincettes
- Seven-star needles
- Splinter forceps
- Tack tweezers
- Taylor-type percussion hammers
- Therapeutic acupuncture magnets
- Therapeutic cooling packs
- Therapeutic heating packs
- Three-edged bloodletting needles
- Tiger warmers
- Tongue depressors
- Trancutaneous electrical nerve stimulation TENS units
- Ultrasound massagers
- Vibration massagers
- Wartenberg pinwheels
- Wide grip tweezers
Technology Skills required for Acupuncturist
- AcuPartner Professional
- Electronic health record EHR software
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft Office software
- Microsoft Outlook
- Microsoft Windows
- Microsoft Word
- Miridia Technology AcuGraph
- Qchart
- Qpalm Acupuncture
- QPuncture II
- Trigram Software AcuBase Pro
- Word processing software