AAC’s acupuncture community is growing!

We have had quite a start to 2024!  Firstly, a big welcome to all of our new members both in AAC and in JAMA.  We are delighted that our community is growing.  Please do all join our Facebook groups – we have one for AAC and one for the Japanese Acupuncture & Moxibustion Association.  These have no adverts and we use them to communicate news to you but more importantly – these are open forums for asking clinical questions or having open debate.  The emphasis is on supportive discussion without judgment or criticism.  Please do join the discussion. 

We have exciting news for all of you, no matter where you are on your acupuncture journey.  We are launching Spring by asking you the question “Just One Thing….?”  If we, as a membership body, could do just one thing that would make a difference to you in your work – what would it be?  Look out for the question in our communications to you.  And, we would like to have a small working group comprising a Student, a Newly Qualified Practitioner, an Established Practitioner, and an Elder to work with us to evaluate those responses and see where we can help.  It can be something small and practical that you need in clinic or it can be something big that we need to tackle as a profession.  Please do tell us what that “one thing” that would make a difference to you and what you think would benefit your acupuncture colleagues too.  And do come forward if you would like to be part of the group to evaluate the findings and help us prioritize.

We are also launching an Elders Membership – this is for those of you who are nearing retirement or have retired but you just want to still hear from the profession and more importantly – have something to share.  You have invested time and money in developing your career – you have treated hundreds of patients – we value that knowledge and experience.  Please do remain part of our community as we are sure that so many of us value that too.

Practitioner Welfare is of real importance to us and we wish to see a rich, multi-layered profession.  We are shortly going to be telling you more about our plans to support those who are newly qualified or those who would like to refresh and connect with your peers.  It will bring opportunities for leadership skills as well as refreshing clinical skills.  We have a wonderful group comprising members and a working board pulling this together.

We have listened to your feedback and are upgrading our “Acupuncturist Near Me” page which should be much easier to use and will allow patients to find you much more readily.  We also have streamlined the Members Area which had become so full of wonderful resources but needed an improved way of finding it all.

Our supervision & mentoring program is going from strength to strength. Over the last few months, Sarah Matheson has expanded the supervisors from within our membership. The team is now Sarah Matheson, Marianne Killick, Naomi Nash, and Lisa Milnes, who are working alongside Sarah to offer a high standard of care and support to our members. 

We had a really busy 2023 offering lots of training opportunities to you all.  We had training for those who wanted to learn more about mastering moxa or mastering medicinal mushrooms,  getting involved in testing by learning phlebotomy or specializing by learning skills in cosmetic acupuncture.  This year we have begun by learning more about micro-systems to treat neurological conditions and have a 2-day course on supplements coming up in April.  We will be sending out feedback forms to those of you who have attended. We want to know your thoughts on the training and how you are using it all in clinic and what else you would like us to arrange to help you deepen your knowledge. 

Our membership organisations have a small Working Board.  We are all practitioners and meet regularly to review our operations and prepare and agree strategy and objectives for the future.  Good governance is critical to our transparency but we are keen to remain light and nimble in our operations which keeps the costs low and allows us to be dynamic.  We had a great meeting in January which fired us all up with enthusiasm to hit 2024 running!  More from the other board members soon.

Looking ahead, Kevin Durjun is already planning the conference.  Kevin is looking for your ideas on what would really fire you up to come and join us.  It’s always such a wonderful way to connect, but please do tell us what you would like to see on the agenda and send in your suggestions.

Very much in our minds are the current licensing consultations.  Both of these have highlighted for us the need to work swiftly on uniting our profession to raise standards in all areas to allow us to continue to manage ourselves.  Protecting the autonomy of our profession whilst providing support to our members and protecting the public is a huge part of what we are focusing on this year.

Thank you for all your wonderful communications with us.  We enjoy hearing from you through email and by phone and soon to come is a WhatsApp messaging service.  Our membership strategy is energetic and ambitious – please do keep giving us your feedback so that we can ensure that we are all moving forward together. 

With very best wishes to you all

Clare