Vancouver lawyer Mason Loh, chair of the College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Practitioners and Acupuncturists of British Columbia, hopes that acupuncture needles and Chinese herbal remedies will one day be as familiar to BC patients as physicians' stethoscopes and lab coats. And he may not have long to to wait.
Last December the provincial government approved regulations that establish TCM as an alternative form of primary health care. Such official recognition, says Loh, “will promote public confidence in this ancient but proven form of healing.” (The cost is not covered under medicare.)
The new regulations, now part of BC's Health Professions Act, are the latest step in a regulatory process set in motion in 1999, when the province designated TCM a self-governing health profession. They restrict the practice of TCM to registered members of the new college (www.ctcma.bc.ca). The government says TCM means the “promotion, maintenance and restoration of health and prevention of a disorder, imbalance or disease” based on 5 primary therapies: Chinese acupuncture (Zhen), moxibustion (Jiu) and suction cup (Ba Guan); Chinese manipulative therapy (Tui Na); Chinese energy control therapy (Qi Gong); rehabilitation exercises such as Chinese shadow boxing (Tai Ji Quan); and prescribing, compounding or dispensing Chinese herbal formulas and food cure recipies. Practitioners face several practice restrictions. For instance, “no acupuncturist or herbalist may treat an active serious medical condition unless the client has consulted with a medical practitioner, naturopath or dentist or doctor of traditional Chinese medicine, as appropriate.”
Before the regulations take effect, says registrar Randy Wong, the college must set educational requirements for various types of TCM practitioners and create a public complaints process and ethical guidelines. It has already registered 420 acupuncturists, most under a clause that involved assessing existing skills. By June, anyone who wishes to practise acupuncture in BC must be registered with the college. Early in 2002, it expects to begin registering TCM doctors; in all, more than 1000 TCM practitioners will fall under the college umbrella.
However, the province has yet to win over its own physicians, many of whom remain sceptical about TCM. “What's next?” asks Dr. Morris VanAndel, registrar of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC. “A college of iridology?”
VanAndel says it is acceptable for physicians to recommend acupuncture or other elements of TCM therapy to complement standard treatment when there is good evidence that it is beneficial. However, he says it is unethical for a doctor to refer a patient directly to any practitioner whose profession — regulated or not — does not conform to modern scientific standards.