West is going to meet east at the UCD medical school in the interests of pain management. Irish doctors are about to embrace alternative medicine as never before, as acupuncture is going to be taught for the first time in an Irish university. A proposal to establish a new higher diploma in acupuncture has been approved in principle by UCD's Faculty of Medicine. It will be offered to doctors and physiotherapists with a minimum of two years post-graduate experience who wish to use acupuncture as an adjunct therapy in their practices.
After lengthy discussions the faculty has found there is a scientific basis to acupuncture, but it has moved quickly to point out it would not be opening the floodgates to training in numerous branches of what is called "complementary medicine".
"It is not an entry degree, nor entry training and we are not linking up with any other groups in Ireland or elsewhere. The aim is to provide academic training for healthcare professionals in the use of an established therapeutic discipline," according to Prof Conal Hooper, associate dean of medicine at UCD.
While he would like to establish whether a western medical approach or traditional Chinese principles would be applied in the course, acupuncturist Mr Paul McCarthy (who has taught acupuncture and has clinics in Blackrock and Greystones), welcomed the initiative. "Any recognition is better than none at all."
The Medical Council in Ireland had regarded acupuncture as quackery, he added, "on a par with body piercing and tattoo artists", though the World Health Organisation had recognised it as a valid part of medicine. Currently, there is no formal tuition on any alternative or complementary techniques at UCD, Dr Geoffrey Chadwick of the Centre for Medical Education told Medicine Weekly.
"Inevitably, a medical faculty is going to be cautious about including such courses in the curriculum until the techniques have been shown to be effective. But, in reality, doctors need to know about them," he said.
Dr John Fleetwood, a Dublin GP who has questioned some forms of alternative medicine, said that of the "alternatives" acupuncture was best known and had been shown to work in some cases. It was a good idea that doctors be introduced to it, though there was a strong view among Irish doctors that "anything alternative would be wrong".
