Commitment to Safety, Ethics, and Public Protection
AFCI deliberately educates and trains practitioners who are already regulated health care professionals. This orientation arises out of our recognition that safety, quality and ethics are of paramount importance for public protection, with respect to all health care.
The primary ethical principle of medicine and most health professional codes of ethics is “Do No Harm”. This is ensured by competency-based education and ethical development of practitioners, supporting an informed public, the setting of standards for practitioner training and practice, formalized codes of ethics by which health professionals are bound and for which they are accountable, and monitoring by the appropriate regulatory bodies.
As a partner with regulators in the safety of acupuncture services, AFCI emphasizes the following key elements in its training and development:
a. Accurate Diagnosis
The most important aspect of any health care service is accurate diagnosis or problem assessment prior to treatment. Although this is not always possible in either Western Medicine or Traditional Chinese Medicine, proper diagnosis before acupuncture treatment is encouraged, whenever possible, by AFCI. This becomes extremely important in the frequent circumstances of complex or chronic health conditions, where unclear diagnosis may lead to inappropriate treatment and, with the use of acupuncture, may actually conceal the symptoms that are the primary road to accurate diagnosis. In that scenario, acupuncture could alleviate symptoms that are a warning sign of a condition that requires medical attention.
b. Thorough History and Referral
AFCI-trained practitioners are expected to take a proper history and to perform an appropriate physical examination prior to making a western diagnosis or to make a referral for a western diagnosis that would alert them to the need for further investigation, before proceeding with treatment.
c. Infection Prevention and Control
The first way to protect the patient for infection prevention and control purposes is for the practitioner to wash his or her hands before each treatment and to cleanse the skin. The AFCI Education Committee recommends cleaning the skin with a preparation of 2% chlorhexidine and 4% isopropyl alcohol.
With respect to performing acupuncture, clean needle technique using single-use (disposable) sterile acupuncture needles is the standard to which all practitioners should be trained, and comply with in practice. Disposable needles are readily available in most settings today. AFCI recommends the use of sterile single package disposable needles as the standard of care in the North American context.
d. Competency-based Training
Safety is ensured next by practitioners being well trained in anatomy. They must be competent in the location of acupuncture points and proper, safe techniques of needle insertion. Special attention is given to points that are related to organs that must be carefully protected during needle insertion and points to be avoided during high risk patient situations such as pregnancy. All of AFCI’s students are practitioners who have been trained in anatomy in their respective professions and anatomy as it relates to the acupuncture points is re-taught at all AFCI courses.
e. Treatment Evaluation
Acupuncture can be very useful as a confirming diagnostic tool when it relieves symptoms, and when it fails to alleviate symptoms that one would expect it to help. This may also be so when acupuncture relieves the pain or other symptoms but the relief does not soon begin to last longer with each treatment. When AFCI practitioners feel that their patients are not improving as expected, AFCI teaching always underlines the importance first of re-evaluating the diagnosis and secondly of considering if there is a practitioner better equipped to deal with the problem at hand. In other words, the focus is always on the patient and the health and well being of that patient.
Link of AFCI to Professional Scopes of Practice and Regulation
As a provider of accredited acupuncture training for health professionals in Canada, the USA and other countries: physicians, dentists, physiotherapists, chiropractors, acupuncturists, TCM doctors, TCM practitioners, baccalaureate level registered nurses and naturopathic doctors, ACFI supports the practice of acupuncture as a treatment method or modality used in a complementary or alternative way to the skills and competencies included in the scope of practice of the regulated health professionals who have successfully completed accredited acupuncture training. While acupuncture is, in this circumstance, an integrated health service, it plays a unique role in quality patient outcomes regarding health and healing, pain and inflammation management, disability adaptation, and quality of life support, regardless of diagnosis and severity of symptoms.
As a membership organization, and a partner in health leadership, AFCI supports the acupuncture-trained health professionals who practise acupuncture within their scopes of practice in all areas of professional regulation, including:
• authorization by the regulator to provide acupuncture services
• proper use of protected titles
• adherence to the profession’s code of ethics,
• meeting the profession’s standards of practice
• practising acupuncture within their level of competence, and
• maintaining continuing competency requirements in acupuncture.
As a leader in acupuncture education, and advisor regarding acupuncture research and service, AFCI continues to support the integration of acupuncture across all health services in Canada
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