Veterinary Acupuncture Course

[BECafe]

Does anyone have good info which acupuncture course is best? Do you know anyone who actually took the course and have advice about it?

I know there are three major courses provided; Chi institute, IVAS and CSU. CSU obviously differs from two other in terms of scientific approach v.s. traditional approach.

(Please,no discussion whether acupuncture works or not)

Thanks!

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[Bill59]

It depends on what you're looking for and where you want to go.

Chi is very much based on Traditional Chinese Medicine and incorporates a lot of herbal therapy in addition to acupuncture. It's in Florida.

CSU is a medical acupuncture course with focus on physiology and anatomy. You won't get any TCM.

IVAS is somewhat in between, but does include TCM. The location of their courses move around.

I think they all now have on-line courses as well.

Do a VIN search and you'll find a lot of discussion of the various courses.

 

[CBRGrl]

I was faced with the same question last year and ended up going with CSU's program because it is more medically based. All the programs will teach you the same points, but in CSU's program Dr. Robinson goes through which nerves and muscles each point stimulates and how you can use those points to specifically help your patients. There is a lot of specific case discussion (ie: treatment of chronic renal disease or IVDD or hip dysplasia..etc). They also give you good information on how to talk to clients about acupuncture and some interesting info about using laser and...all in all I'm very pleased to have my Cert. VMA certification hanging on my wall. As part of the course you will be given a set of notes (not sure if the TCM course does this...but they might) as well as two really nice laminated "pocket" books with visual illustrations of all the points, which nerves they innervate and common medical uses for them. Those books, to me now in practice, are worth their weight in gold.

Hope this helps. I know people who did attend the TCM course and liked it. I think its important to choose the course that you are most comfortable with and will give you the best tools for implementing acupuncture into your practice. Good luck! Feel free to shoot me any more questions!

 

[equineconstant]

The head anatomy teacher at my school got her certification at Chi Institute. She did not mention CSU's program, but she said she was glad she picked the one she did.