Combined Bachelor's/Master's - Acupuncture

Curriculum - MSA

Students earning the MSA must complete their degree requirements within five years including any credits completed as a bachelor's student and applied toward the master's.

In order to receive a license to practice acupuncture in the majority of states a student must earn either an MSA or MSAOM degree, pass the NCCAOM licensing exam and meet any additional state requirements.

Students may enter their course of study either into the combined BS/MS programs or directly into the MS programs. (The programs described below include required curriculum for the bachelor of science in natural health sciences.)

The curriculum tables that follow list the tentative schedule of courses each quarter. Next to each course are the number of credits per course (Crdt.), the lecture hours each week (Lec.), the lab/clinic hours each week (L/C) and the total contact hours for the course over the entire quarter (Tot).

Year I

Year II

Year III

Elective Requirements

Total Requirements

For students who are approved to take an optional clinic in China, eight (8) credits (16 lab hours) will be applied toward AOM Clinical hours.

Expected Learning Outcomes

The Department of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine has established the following expected learning outcomes for all Master of Science in Acupuncture/Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine programs. Graduates will be trained to be:

• Safe and effective in the care of patients by demonstrating in-depth ability in the following areas:

• Knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine  diagnostic strategies and their application to individual cases
• Skill in the traditional methods of assessment of patients including interviewing, palpation and observation
• Competence in selecting the appropriate treatment modalities and plans for a patient utilizing acupuncture, tui na, Chinese herbs (relevant to the MSAOM) and lifestyle counseling
• Skill in the application of acupuncture techniques in an appropriate and safe fashion for each patient

• Able to integrate Eastern and Western paradigms of medicine for the purposes of informing the practice of traditional Chinese medicine, communicating with other health care professionals and patients, and making appropriate medical referrals when necessary
• Professional in their approach to setting up and maintaining a private practice, collaborating with other health care professionals, working in an integrated health care setting and providing leadership within the acupuncture and Oriental medicine field
• Capable of accessing research information and critically assessing the value of published clinical research in the field
• Able to provide health prevention measures based on traditional Chinese medicine theory (such as tai chi, qigong, and therapeutic nutrition) to support the well-being of their patients and themselves
• Qualified to pass national and state acupuncture and/or herbal exam

Curriculum and course changes in the 2012-2013 Bastyr University Catalog are applicable to students entering during the 2012-2013 academic year. Please refer to the appropriate catalog if interested in curriculum and courses required for any other entering year.

China Externship

Many acupuncture and Oriental medicine (AOM) programs in the United States offer students a trip to China. Bastyr University offers AOM students something more: a monthlong for-credit externship in China that uniquely prepares practitioners to work in integrative settings, with high patient volumes, and with people who have serious and unusual illnesses.

About the Externship

Students in Bastyr's graduate and post-graduate AOM programs can spend a month or more in the late spring or early fall studying abroad and learning traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) at two of China's most prestigious schools, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine or the Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Designed as an externship, the trip is organized to maximize students' hands-on clinical training by putting them in both outpatient and inpatient settings in teaching hospitals. In a typical day, students might shadow Chinese teaching physicians as they make rounds, check tongues and pulses, perform tests if needed, make herb/medication changes, and sometimes recommend or administer acupuncture treatments.

Value for Students

The common cold, a sore back, a stroke, cancer — in China every medical condition falls under the TCM practitioner's purview. This cultural difference means TCM physicians in China see triple the daily patient load typical for practitioners in America. For students on the externship, it means exposure to conditions and situations they probably won't encounter during clinical training in the United States.

“Clinical training in the University’s main clinic, its many specialty offsite clinics and the China externship brings the theory to life and help each student understand how to apply these principles to effectively treat disease and alleviate suffering,” says Richard (Kyo) Mitchell, DAOM, LAc, a faculty member in Bastyr's Department of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine.

Integration Benefits U.S. Patients

Clinical training in China offers another advantage: The teaching physicians are trained in both Western and Eastern medicine. These doctors model an integrative approach to treatment, often prescribing X-rays and laboratory tests alongside TCM treatments, which acupuncturists in America cannot do.

Bastyr students spend years learning to be 'gatekeepers' — identifying when treatment is appropriate, but also when Western interventions are needed. During the the externship, students witness an extremely integrative approach.

Nicolette Behne, a recent DAOM graduate who took the trip in May 2010, says the idea of integrating Eastern and Western medicine "really hit home during the externship," and she came home with many ideas on how to integrate in her private practice.

"It's about combining TCM and Western medicine in the best way possible to help people live longer with an improved quality of life," she says, noting that in China oncology patients can receive "Western" or "herbal" chemotherapy one day and then, on a non-chemo day, take support herbs that help with the side effects. "This allows patients to continue their chemo regimen. TCM and Western medicine can work together the same way here in the U.S."

The Future of AOM in the U.S.

Not only do externship students see a more integrative model of care in China, but they are afforded a glimpse into how TCM could evolve as a health care model in the United States. As TCM becomes more familiar to the general population and as its benefits become more widely recognized, practitioners must learn how to operate in integrative settings and work within a greater scope of practice. 

“Our students are educated in traditional Chinese medical theory and western science," Dr. Mitchell says. "These two complementary perspectives deepen the students’ understanding of health and medicine beyond what can be understood from a single model perspective.”

About Acupuncture Clinical Training

Becoming an effective practitioner of acupuncture and Oriental medicine (AOM) involves close mentoring and instruction by experienced and knowledgeable faculty members in a variety of patient care settings.

Consistency and Quality in Training

To guarantee the highest consistency in quality education for its students, the AOM clinical program focuses the majority of your clinic shifts in the University's teaching clinic, Bastyr Center for Natural Health. Bastyr's acupuncture and Oriental medicine program is science-based, training you to the highest standards to be a qualified acupuncturist.

You will be prepared for licensure in the 44 states (and District of Columbia) that legally recognize acupuncture by Bastyr's highly qualified and experienced faculty, many of whom have been in practice more than 20 years in the United States and China.

Diverse Patient Population

In the course of your clinical training, you will have the opportunity to provide care to a wide range of patients with a variety of medical conditions. Within Bastyr Center, there are several different types of patient care shifts available to students:

• General acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine
• Immune wellness care for patients with HIV/AIDS
• Integrated acupuncture and naturopathic medicine (for students enrolled in both programs)
• Opportunities to rotate through off-site community care clinics that provide affordable health care to diverse populations, including seniors, low-income and immigrant communities.

For licensed acupuncturists who enroll in the Certificate in Chinese Herbal Medicine program, there are a number of herbal shifts available.

Patient Contacts/Training Hours

• You will obtain a minimum of 400 patient contacts with 100 different patients, a requirement that ensures your ability to be successful as a graduate.
• You will spend 44 preceptor hours "shadowing" and observing acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine professionals in their private practices.
• Clinic training hours vary by degree program, with 1,356 total clinical training hours for the Master of Science in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, and 828 hours for the Master of Science in Acupuncture.
• As a fourth-year master’s degree student, you have the unique opportunity to study acupuncture and/or Chinese herbal medicine at one of our sister schools in either Shanghai or Chengdu, China, under the leadership of Bastyr faculty. Learn more about the China externship.