I have the greatest respect for physical therapists (PTs). They are highly skilled professionals but they are not acupuncturists. Most PTs I know do not do Dry Needling (DN), they view it as acupuncture and are not comfortable with it. DN is a form of acupuncture being given by PTs after 54 hours of manual training, without any certification to do acupuncture. Speaking as an ANCC-certified Nurse Practitioner with a masters degree & a Licensed Acupuncturist with a masters level certificate, I believe 54 Hours is barely enough time to review sterile technique & OSHA requirements for handling acupuncture needles. My 3 year acupuncture program was nearly 3000 hours. I was also required to do a clean needle course and get a Clean Needle Certification; to become nationally certified I was required to take 3 tests (that were more difficult than the national Nurse Practitioner certifications test) and on occasion I feel that was not enough. So as you might guess how I feel about physical therapists doing acupuncture.

DN is a form of acupuncture and is an invasive procedure, which carries with it the substantial risk of harm to patients in untrained hands. To allow this PT scope expansion via an administrative rule is profoundly irresponsible. It circumvents all training and safety statutes put into place for the practice of acupuncture. This puts the public at risk of harm, and is nothing less than flagrant consumer health fraud.

I have seen DN advertisements for sinusitis/allergy treatment and facial rejuvenation by PTs.  To my way of thinking, this is not right. There are no independently verified training requirements/competencies for DN, no certification testing, and no longitudinal training pathways.  National experience has already shown that when given this opening to practice, physical therapists frequently expand into overt acupuncture practice. Some PTs seek this modality because it is a short-course, back door entry into acupuncture, which could sully the reputation of physical therapists everywhere. While we appreciate the sentiment behind a signed statement that the patient is not receiving acupuncture, in all fact, this is misleading and the patient is indeed receiving poorly trained acupuncture.

It is easy to see why the majority of the lay public and some in the medical community see PT DN treatment as an equivalent or alternative to acupuncture treatment by a licensed acupuncturist. But it is not. I feel that it would be wrong for the Virginia Board of Medicine to allow PTs to expand their scope of practice to include DN acupuncture treatment.