Alternative medicine doctor, licenced or not?
A friend of mine is seeing one whose name card titled as "M.S, D.O.M, L.Ac." I think L.Ac. means a license of Acupuncture. M.S. usually means master of science, but I really donâ ™t know what D.O.M. means.
A website that can help us verify the credential of this doctor with her name would be really appreciated. Thanks.
My friend is an L.Ac. and D.O.M.
http://www.pacificcollege.edu/
EDIT: SkepDoc, angrydoc, You should both do some research before you attempt to discredit other medical professionals just because they choose a different path than yourself.
Alternative medicine practitioners work equally as hard for their accreditations as Western med professionals do for their MDs.
Western Medicine will have it's credibility back when doctors stop allowing drug company representatives and HMO bean counters tell them how to do their jobs.
Let's see,... Trasylol, Zelnorm and Serevant make how many ineffective if not fatal drugs pulled from your stockpiles now?
EDIT: bakbrakr1: You're absolutely right. The first thing they do in medical school is strip the student of every shred of humanity they posses, teach them that anything that does not come from some medical research lab is tantamount to witchcraft, and that they are infallible demigods who should never be questioned or held accountable for their mistakes.
Though, at least in my area, I thankfully have started seeing more and more doctors opening their eyes to alternative medicine, and in the process, becoming human beings again. My grandfather's oncologist is a perfect example: HE was the one that suggested acupuncture to help ease his nausea and pain.
For accreditation you might try:
http://www.nccaom.org/find/index.html
Your state should have a listing of licenses on it's department of health (or equivalent) website.
EDIT: Oh, SkepDoc, you and your "there's no evidence" rant are getting old. I've repeatedly posted articles that argue exactly the opposite, such as:
http://www.umm.edu/news/releases/back_pa...
But you continue to ignore them to promote your own beliefs. If you MUST be a purely objective scientist, then you have to consider ALL evidence, not just the stuff that supports what you already believe. If you are truly objective, the only rational conclusion you could come to (regarding acupuncture, in this case) is that the evidence is inconclusive.
Having said that, I have witnessed, even in my short time in this field, patients recovering from significant problems through acupuncture WHICH OTHER FORMS OF MEDICINE DID NOT HELP. If acupuncture is "merely a placebo" as you repeatedly suggest, shouldn't these patients have had some success via the placebo affect in other therapies?
But of course you will not acknowledge these things (prediction: you will completely ignore this post as you have in the past). Instead, you will continue to sit in your ivory tower and cast down your disparagement of all things not sanctioned by the medical establishment. Pity, as there's so much more to be had out there.
I wonder what explaination Skep would dream up about my dog's liposarcoma shrinking in size so dramatically that my vet asked for my recipe of herbs and what reiki therapist I was taking my dog to.
Modern scientists and doctors frequently believe they are God-like and ignore the nature of what has allowed them to become doctors. Plants give medicine, but scientists think that if they extract just one chemical of a plant, they can make people better, when instead they frequently give them more problems than the disease itself! ie asprin will eventually eat a hole in your stomach, but you can take the white willow bark all day long and never get that effect. They take the sap from a opium plant and get morphine, but if they used a bitter tea using the whole flower, they would get pain relief for twice for the amount of time and without the high addiction rates. The thealine is another chemical that comes with the opiate, but they take it out. Using the whole flower, it acts as an antagonist in the mu receptors allowing the opium to work, but not cause the addiction unless severely abused.
I'll also bet he uses more antibiotics to "cure" someone of MRSA. It only makes the bacteria that survive stronger to pass onto someone else, while killing all the good bacteria and messing up the intestinal flora. Doctors prescibing too much antibiotics is WHY we have MRSA today. A more effective way to take care of it is with a paste of turmeric and baking soda along with taking turmeric internally. But who wants to admit natural medicine works better?
I would definitely go with natural medicine! There are people that claim to practice natural medicine who are also incompetent. Check your sources and get referals!
You could also check with any state/federal licensing agencies to verify if they are certified as well, just to make sure they applied for and received all the correct licenses and everything.
Granted, that tends to be over the top, but that's a way to verify that his qualifications are real. Otherwise, you could check the certificates on the wall and verify that the letters after the doctor's name match those on the wall and that they're real degrees/certifications.
And yes, L.Ac. is an Licensed Acupuncturist. ;-) Good luck!
In support of Skepdoc, you cannot compare the hard work a medical doctor has put in for his license to a quack from a diploma mill. Seriously.
Conventional medicine is science and evidence based, it has been through the rigors of peer review, repeatability and skeptical evaluation. Alt "medicine" is largely untested, pseudoscientific based administration of placebos, where the risks and interactions are largely unknown.
There is also a plethora of alt med poor quality, biased studies - often referenced here. It can be difficult to evaluate such studies for validity, unless trained to do so, as are medical doctors.
Further, those who claim to get better after (for example) acupuncture, particularly if they have also been on and given up proper meds, can be falling for the regression fallacy, this can fool the practitioner as well. This must be taken into account when evaluating claims, but rarely is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regressive_...
Those who claim doctors are on the big pharma payroll are either deluded or dishonest -they can not provide credible evidence for that claim.
"Before graduating from a medical school and achieving the degree of Medical Doctor (MD), students have to pass the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step 1 and to take both the Clinical Knowledge and Clinical Skills parts of Step 2. The MD degree is typically earned in four years. Following the awarding of the MD, physicians who wish to practice in the United States are required to complete at least one internship year (PGY-1) and pass the USMLE Step 3."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_doc...
I will point out that just because someone has been given a certificate, doesn't really have any meaning in whether or not the treatment is real or effective.
Yes, acupuncturists form "accreditation" groups and give each other certificates, so do iridologists, TCM, reflexology, Therapeutic Touch, Reiki....they all give people some nice diplomas to hang on the wall.
This is a sad attempt to gain some credibilty and legitimacy. After all, doctors and PhD's go to school, and get to have letters after their names, and diplomas to put on the wall. It adds to the gravitas, by co-opting scientific credentials with their pseudo-science.
So...since there is no good evidence that acupuncture does anything other than activate opioids via the placebo response (this is the BEST evidence) and has no known benefit for ANY disease condition, and has no proof of its mystical concepts of chi and meridians.....a plaque on the wall saying someone is "certified" is meaningless.
Someone could just as easilly be "certified" in reading chicken entrails by the Institute of Voodoo Medicine Practitioners.....it is meaningless.
Lastly....there is a thriving internet business in providing diplomas, plaques and credentials in almost anything for money.
(thumbs down prediction:4)
(angry email prediction:2)
EDIT: I see this one got some attention. Good. At least you're reading my answers, and then maybe something useful will rub off.
I don't really care how "long and hard" someone works to get a piece of paper, if what they worked long and hard at is useless...such as homeopathy.
Someone slagged me for saying "there's no evidence" for acupuncture. That wasn't really the focus of this question, but whatever. Acupuncture is one of the best studied forms of sCAM, literally hundreds of papers over several decades. The upshot of all that? At best...AT BEST...there is weak evidence that there may be an effect on mild pain or nausea. That's it. Look at the progress made in real medicine in the last 3-4 decades for comparison. Search any of my old answers on acupuncture, I'm not going to repeat myself here as it's off topic
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