Continuing Medical Acupuncture Education A Brief History

Marilyn Strauss, Convenor CMAE

Continuing Medical Acupuncture Education was set up in 1982 with the specific aim of providing Australian practitioners with quality medical acupuncture education.

“During the early Eighties there was no one in Australia with sufficient Acupuncture Education to qualify as an expert teacher.”.........................Simon Strauss.

This deficit was addressed by the importation of two specialist Medical Acupuncturists from the Peoples Republic of China, both with long term academic positions and practical experience. These teachers were available to Continuing Medical Acupuncture Education as a result of the ties Simon Strauss established during his training at the Nanking College of Traditional Chinese Medicine's, WHO recognised course of medical acupuncture 1978. (This was the first course for western medical practitioners and was designed by the WHO to provide acupuncture educators for second world countries.)

Over the following years, our two Chinese teachers in conjunction with Simon Strauss, ran 'continual' courses at 10 High St. Southport, a busy Multidisciplinary Pain Clinic. These courses initially were of 6 week duration, this was later reduced to one month and then into integrated weekly segments. These changes were made in response to our students wishes. From 1983, Continuing Medical Acupuncture Education introduced acupuncture to several hundred Australian doctors. Informal surveys over the years established that the majority of our students went home and utilised what they had learnt.

Since 1992 Continuing Medical Acupuncture Education in response to repeated requests for short intense meaningful courses, again changed the teaching format to, four day, forty plus hours of immersion style teaching.

These courses taught by Professor Anton Jayasuriya, who attended the first Acupuncture course for third world countries held in Beijing, 1976, have been remarkably successful both as to attendance and to the acquisition of useful knowledge. The latter has been formally assessed by written survey of attendees several months after attendance. Our four months post seminar evaluation, showed that 100% of responders had used Acupuncture, 71% had used most and 14% had used all the material presented. 29% stated they were referring less for Radiology and 74% stated they were referring less for pain management. 92% reported a change in their management of Pain patients. These results are a tribute to Professor Jayasuriya's skill, dedication and vast clinical and teaching experience that allows our seminar attendees to acquire so much useful, practical knowledge in so little time.

“ Continuing Medical Acupuncture's learning objectives clearly are being met. Again the importance of our policy of having China trained medical acupuncturists as teachers has been validated.”