Successful Professionals

Here's a response I wrote to a CAN member who wonders if this First Doctoral initiative is a bad thing. On the surface it looks just fine so what's the big deal? Here's my response and I am attaching the ACAOM newsletter that I refer to:

The attachment is an interesting read. On the face of it Howard Simmons is partially right and partially premature. The premature part is simple- Simmons is thinking the profession wants this First Doctorate thing but the reality is he is only aware of what the schools want. Remember the ACAOM gets its funding directly from the schools and beyond that various school administration types are on the ACAOM Board. So Simmons/ACAOM doesn't know what the profession really feels about this subject. My worry though is that they may not truly find out what the profession truly thinks about the First Doctorate initiative because, and this is important, it is not at all a straight forward initiative.

What do I mean by that? This is where Simmons is partially right. On the face of it the ACAOM is just writing regulations for a school that wants to offer a course of study for a new student to get a Doctorate without having the get a Master's degree first then reapplying for a separate Doctoral program. The ACAOM already has regulations on accrediting Doctoral programs just like they have regs for Masters programs. This new initiative sort of combines the two. Seems very simple on the surface...

Unless you take the view of a new student. You and I John were once new students hoping to get into the field so you remember wondering how you should go about it. You did research about programs and chose one. These days its much the same. But say this First Doctoral comes about and a school offers it. Now if you are that new student evaluating programs throughly you would have gotten the sense that when you graduate you would open a private practice. If you had really done your homework you would also know that its not easy opening a private practice. You would then have to ask what would a First Doctoral program give you that a Masters program won't- other than a couple more years to rack up debt? Would the First Doctorate make your private practice be more likely to succeed? The answer is no it wouldn't. There is no evidence that more years in a classroom makes for financially successful practitioners. So logically your choice should be the Master's program. And if later you wanted a Doctoral you could always go back to school.

Now of course if you hadn't done your homework and just thought, "I like the idea of a Doctoral more than a Masters." then sure you would choose the First Doctoral. So in a state where both the First Doctoral and the Masters are offered the First Doctoral would mainly attract students who didn't think things through. To me that is enough to say we don't need First Doctorate programs. But lets go further.

Now look at this from a school's perspective. If they offer a First Doctoral they know (or should know) that if they also offer a Master's program most prospective students would choose the Master's. The First Doctorate would not generate much profit as there would be few students enrolled in it. The regular Doctorate programs already in existence are dwarfed by the Master's programs in terms of student enrollment; the First Doctorate would be smaller still. Why offer it? Or better yet how do we make the First Doctorate more profitable?

Simple: Get rid of the Master's program. John I hope you realize that over the past 20 years or so, acupuncture schools have kept increasing the amount of classes students need to get a degree. That beyond just increasing the number of classes they have gotten it required that a) you can't apprentice as a way to get your license and b) you need a Masters degree to get your license. In other words schools have always looked to increasing the time students need to pay them. These days its becoming common for students to graduate $100,000 in debt. So you have to think that the schools are still thinking this way. Getting rid of the Master's program would generate more profits for the schools- they think.

But they can only do that if their competitors also drop their Master's degrees. To do that would require rewriting state laws. But the schools are totally up for that effort as it means so much to them. So Lisa and I contend that if this First Doctorate program gets approved then there will ensue a whole bunch of battles in the states to change the laws. But again, this will not benefit the students and the graduating practitioner. It will still be hard to start a practice. It will in fact be harder because the practitioner will have even more debt load than they do now.

This is why we oppose the First Doctorate initiative. Its basically a money grab by the schools. It does not benefit private practitioners. It leads to rewriting state laws to make the profession even more exclusive.

Here is the text of the ACAOM newsletter -- whoops, won't let me copy, let me see about actually attaching it.

It is truly amazing how our culture blithely ignores the working class. We look to our own interests, advancing our professional image, insisting that we have a right to partake in the abundance of the universe - it all looks innocent from that perspective. But who takes the time to look at what our fees, academic requirements, and lifestyle have on the rest of the world?

What really drove home to me was the day I took an online quiz for carbon footprint. Turns out, if everyone on the planet lived like I did, it would take four and a half earths to support us all. As I've said before, ignoring the effects of our actions on the world makes us ignorant. These proposed increases in acupuncturist requirements are just another example.