How to Make an Acupuncture School

Art by A.Cohen

I spend a lot of time talking to people about acupuncture schools.¹ Meaning, I have conversations not just about my own school, but acupuncture schools in general, with a pretty wide range of people — including some who are really angry at acupuncture schools (see: Borrower’s Defense) as well as people who are considering applying to acupuncture school, and even people who are thinking about starting up their own school.

Recently several people (who don’t have much in common outside of talking to me about acupuncture schools, and who otherwise seem knowledgeable about how the world works) made similar comments, to the effect of “acupuncture schools are closing, but new (and better) schools will replace them” and “acupuncture is in demand, so whatever problems there are with acupuncture education will work themselves out”.

Oh they will, will they? Just like that?

I don’t mean to sound snarky, but I’m skeptical. (Okay, I’m skeptical and snarky. Also, exasperated.) This post might be a follow-up to Shame, Class, and the Acupocalypse, in that it’s another installment in the series of “I don’t understand what’s happening here, is it a class thing?”²

In my experience, the skills it takes to start up and maintain an acupuncture school aren’t skills that acupuncturists — at least in the dominant culture of acupuncture — tend to value. That might be an understatement: aversion might be more accurate, or maybe even loathing. There are all kinds of negative consequences for not valuing those skills, both for individual acupuncturists and for the profession as a whole. Here’s my off-the-cuff inventory of the skills you need to make an acupuncture school (and I’m not saying you need to do these things well, just that you need to be willing to do them, in some form, at all):

The ability to follow bureaucratic directions and proactively create positive relationships with regulators; the ability to communicate pretty much endlessly — in all forms but especially the ability to write, quickly and clearly, because there’s a huge amount of writing involved; the ability to guide a team through a demanding, uncertain, multi-year process, which includes being able to motivate them and yourself; the ability to work with volunteers (see above, motivating them and you); and the ability to fundraise, which includes being able to motivate donors (or investors).

That’s just to get the school off the ground. If all goes well, you’ll also need the ability to manage employees and students; to create and then maintain an epic paper trail (fully 50% of having a school is taking care of your paper trail, which means managing documents and data, many many more documents that you might expect); to create and execute policies and evaluation processes — for your students, your staff, and your program as a whole. Then there’s the ability to run a student clinic, which is essentially a whole separate business (that typically loses money), and/or to create successful partnerships to provide clinical experiences through other organizations, which requires reaching out to your community and building relationships. (Which can be a demanding, multi-year process in its own right.)

And, oh yeah, leadership. The ability to take responsibility for other people and make contributions through them, rather than just doing your own work. Making an acupuncture school is like the ultimate group project.

Acupuncturists hate group projects.

Art by A. Cohen

In the past when I’ve described my own experience with starting a school, I’ve said “my PTSD made me do it” — which is true, but not a complete explanation. PTSD certainly skewed my risk tolerance (too much) and my instinct for self preservation (too little). In hindsight, I made some inappropriate personal sacrifices. In light of the current situation, though, with acupuncture schools closing while my clinic continues to need acupuncturists, maybe I made some good investments? Where exactly is the line between sacrifice and investment?

Hell if I know, but maybe it doesn’t matter, because acupuncturists don’t seem interested in either one. The dominant culture of acupuncture is notably individualistic. Acupuncturists with that mindset are only interested in what benefits them personally, in the next ten minutes or so, and they don’t like to think much beyond that. Except for certain varieties of indignation, e.g. “someone should do something about ____!”

For anyone who’s thinking, “someone should make better acupuncture schools”, or for anyone who’s wondering what that looks like, I went ahead and made a slide show to describe the process and spell out some of the gory details: