There may be many obstacles and challenges that exist when someone tries to run a business as an acupuncturist in America.
The main obstacle must be the fact that acupuncture is still largely foreign to many Americans. Although acupuncture is growing rapidly in popularity worldwide as alternative medicine, the efficacy is still unknown to most people in the US, who are mostly skeptical.
Even in Japan, my parents, who spent their youth during the post-war era in Japan under a huge influence of American culture, never had acupuncture in their lives. When they had physical pain, they went straight to the hospital seeking help from Western medicine. On the contrary, my grandmother totally relied on Oriental medicine, including moxibustion and Kampo - Japanese styles of Chinese herbal medicine. She had many burn scars from moxibustion on both sides of her spine.
For my parents, Oriental medicine was too old-fashioned, primitive, and unreliable, while Western medicine was more scientifically proven and trustworthy. They didn’t look for any kinds of alternative medicine until very end of their battle with terminal cancer. As a result, their children’s generation grew up without knowing acupuncture. I visited the acupuncturist’s office for the first time when I was mid 20’s due to my dance-related injury. If I had not been a dancer then, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to experiment for myself with acupuncture.
Many American people may have similar feelings as my parents had, especially those who live in small towns away from the big cities where people from diverse backgrounds share a multicultural ethnic environment. For Americans from rural areas, or those who have a preference for familiar styles of Western medical treatment, this needle-stick ancient Chinese therapy might look too primitive to try. Cultural discrimination is likely to play a role in the acceptance or rejection of acupuncture as an alternative medicine.
For a solution to this issue, first we have to convince the patients of the efficacy of acupuncture by using anatomical, pathological, and physiological explanations based on Western science, rather than explaining only with the theory of traditional Chinese medicine.
Also, to avoid fearfulness, we have to treat the patients with the least amount of sensation, no pain and no bleeding. If we can convince one patient that acupuncture is not painful at all but very effective for their health issues, the patient may bring other patients by word of month.
When the patients become regular and comfortable with the needles, then we can use the theory of traditional Chinese medicine and the Oriental mythology more and more in the conversation. Acupuncture’s association with Oriental philosophy such as Taoism might appeal to some patients.
