I am a Licensed Acupuncturist and have been licensed by the Virginia Board of Medicine since 2012. I am shocked and find it irresponsible to permit PTs, MDs, and Chiropractors to use filiform needles with as little as 27 hours of training on their patients. I studied for 4 years (3146 hours) of graduate school to earn my right to legally practice acupuncture. Although my classmates and I would have loved to work with needles our first quarter of school and see patients immediately, there was so much more to learn. It would be ridiculous to consider a health professional learning surgery over a weekend seminar and be competant to practice on Monday.

Out of the ignorance of any untrained health professional, the patient is the only one to suffer. We can expect higher rates of pneumothorax (needling the upper body deep enough to puncture the lung). Disease from unclean procedures and reused needles is another possibility. Improperly trained acupuncture may also result in energetic disharmony caused by poor point selection. Much known to the medical world, the Western perspective sees the body as a construct of structures, vessels, organs, bones, etc.. Still a mystery is the Eastern perspective that recognizes the body as this and more: containing invisible pathways of energy on the surface of the body that communicate with organs. Licensed acpuncturists are responsible to know this. Acupuncturists are required to understand the body from a western and eastern traditions. 

With the exception of nurses and MDs, health professionals earlier are not schooled for insertion of any foreign body into their patients. Even then, these are dealing with injectable fluids. I must clarify that whatever nomenclature is given: Dry Needling or Trigger Point Needling...if it involves a filiment needle it is acupuncture. The needle technique of repeatedly advancing the needle until the muscle twitches is only one of our techniques as acupuncturists. 

As a practitioner the greatest challenge in this is working with the patient's experience. I have seen patients who thought they had acupuncture before. It turns out they visited a PT or Chiropractor whose needling was not useful in their healing. Although I recognize some of these practitioners have helped people, I say "leave acupuncture to acupuncturists." The field of acupuncture is young in this country, and its benefits are known. I can understand why other health professionals are interested. That is why I went to Acupuncture school, and suggest they do the same to responsibly follow their interest. If they believe acupuncture can help their patient they should refer to us, and not do a half-cocked job. I do not support misleading the public into thinking they are receiving acupuncture when they are not. 

Thank you,

Ali Sherbiny, L.Ac., Dipl.O.M.