By Eric Brand

Last weekend I was at the AAAOM conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Set at a beautiful desert resort, the conference was an intimate gathering of many of the movers and shakers in the field. As usual, the AAAOM conference coincided with the Council of Colleges’ meetings and a variety of CEU lectures. This year the AAAOM used a system of mail-in ballots for its elections, and the newly elected board was welcomed at the April meeting.

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My time was largely spent in meetings and in the vendor area, so I didn’t have the pleasure of attending all the classes and meetings. However, one of the most notable features of the new board is the fact that its leaders largely come from the younger generation of practitioners. There was a sense of enthusiasm and freshness that bodes well for the profession, and there was an incredible turnout of students. In fact, the student meetings had a turnout that was comparable in size to the general AAAOM meeting, which was an unprecedented shift. In the past, the general meetings have been fairly large because the meetings incorporated voting procedures as well as discussions. This year the voting was largely done by mail-in ballots, which meant that the general forum was smaller than in years past. Nonetheless, the huge student turnout was very impressive; leading the pack, Tai Sophia sent 16 students to the conference while AOMA in Austin sent an impressive group of 13 students. I can’t tell you how inspirational it is to see so many new minds present, ready to engage the field with bright-eyed, bushy-tailed enthusiasm.

Naturally, many of the well-established leaders from the older generation were present as well. School leaders, committee leaders, lecturers, and experienced practitioners certainly made up a large portion of the crowd, but I must say that it was unusual to see so many young faces in the crowd. From the new leaders of the AAAOM to the active student groups, it felt like a new day was dawning on some level.

Being from the younger generation myself, I am acutely aware of the tremendous efforts that the older leaders in our field have put in to get Chinese medicine to the point that it is at today. It is easy for students in the new generation to take for granted our current status, and we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the courageous efforts of the people that allowed acupuncture to slowly achieve licensed regulation, degree-granting privileges, and the general recognition that now allows us to penetrate hospital settings and new frontiers. The older generation started schools that allowed newer generations to study with greater efficiency (not to mention loans to allow for full-time study), and the authors and translators of the older generation created a huge body of literature for new students that never existed for English-speaking students in days gone by. Certainly those of us in the new generation are standing on the shoulders of giants.

That said, many of our teachers and political leaders have had their differences with one another over the years, and it is not uncommon to notice rifts in the profession that keep us divided. The thing that is remarkable about the new generation is that they don’t come in with these same grudges and they don’t have any desire to keep perpetuating these rifts. Certainly we should inspire to learn about these debates and viewpoints, but we need to learn from the divisions of the past so that we can move forward with a united consciousness towards the future. The sheer sense of inspiration and enthusiasm seen in the young leaders and students made me feel like our profession is quickly moving forward with greater unity than ever before. Sure, this enthusiasm is probably mixed with a bit of naïveté that will be dampened by the complex logistics of uniting our diverse profession, but nonetheless I think there is a lot of room for the new leadership to take the reins and lead the field forward.

There are many exciting new changes afoot at the AAAOM. It sounds like we are rapidly moving towards new standards in things such as good dispensing practices, adverse event reporting systems, digital recordkeeping, and fund-raising efforts. All these efforts will create a far more cohesive and professional niche for future practitioners within the global healthcare system, and these directions will open up new avenues for scientific research and integration. A number of pieces to preserve the traditional aspects of Chinese medicine appear to be progressing as well. For example, the AAAOM is going to digitally publish our WHO-Wiseman-Bensky-Xie-Chen terminology cross-reference so that future translators can more easily produce works that preserve traditional knowledge.

Next year’s conference will be held in Baltimore at a setting that will encourage integration with other healthcare professionals, and future conferences will get progressively more global and tied into the Asian world. The new group has finally helped to launch some great fund-raising projects, and I am even holding out some hope that we can shoot for higher professional standards on issues such as examinations and terminology. Students in the new generation are well-aware of the ridiculous limitations of things like the California Board Exam reading list, and the new generation of practitioners has the spirit and passion to move the field ahead to a whole new level of academic caliber. The new Rome won’t be built in a day, but it warmed my heart to see such energetic faces in our leadership. My hat goes off to the AAAOM leaders for their efforts and I encourage all the practitioners and students out there reading this to jump on board and get involved!