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Department of Clinical Education
Hours: 7:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Location: Room B-12
     
 
     
Acupuncture

Minnesota College of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (MCAOM) interns practice under direct supervision of experienced, licensed clinical faculty members in the program’s teaching clinics and at social service agency sites. MCAOM’s main teaching clinic is located on campus and is a dedicated public resource for acupuncture and Oriental medicine services. Interns also have the opportunity to practice under faculty supervision at the University’s Highland Natural Care Center (St. Paul) and in other clinical settings. Clinical services are offered at three non-profit agencies serving the needs of diverse patient populations: women in recovery, persons living with HIV, and individuals with brain and spinal cord injury.

Under direct supervision of a licensed clinical faculty supervisor, interns perform diagnosis, treatment planning, treatment, and outcomes evaluation in the teaching clinic. Students begin internship in pairs and then practice individually. Clinical internship is divided into three stages. At each stage, the instructor focuses on the development of specific competencies. By the final stage, students are expected to be fully competent in all clinical skills, from accurate information gathering through diagnosis and treatment, and including clinic operations. Oriental medicine students are expected to be able to construct, modify, and dispense Chinese herbal formulas and to be familiar with the operations of a Chinese herbal pharmacy.

Supervised interns make regular assessment of the patient's progress, arrange follow-up care, refer where necessary, counsel patients on dietary and lifestyle modifications where indicated, and in general assume responsibility for the patient's ongoing care.

In addition, during each term of clinical internship, students participate in clinic seminars: in weekly group case study sessions.

MCAOM students also have access to a variety of clinical observation opportunities prior to begining their internship, including:

  • Bloomington Teaching Clinic
  • Highland Natural Care Center (St. Paul)
  • The Aliveness Project, an HIV clinic;
  • Perspectives, a clinic for women in recovery from substance abuse, who have recently been homeless, are in a transitional housing program, and are working on getting their lives back together;
  • Woodwinds Natural Care Center, Northwestern's integrated clinic on the campus of a teaching hospital;
  • Faculty Clinic, where students may observe our faculty members in their private practices in the Bloomington Faculty Clinic;
  • Clinical Theater, where a group of students observe while an MCAOM faculty member interviews, diagnoses, and treats a patient.
  • The Courage Center, a rehabilitation center for people with physical disabilities, brain injuries, speech or vision impairments, or hearing loss.

For more information on the clinical intern experience for acupuncture and Oriental medicine students at Northwestern, contact Mark McKenzie, MaOM, LAc, DiplAc/CH (NCCAOM), dean of MCAOM at (952) 888-4777, ext. 274, or e-mail McKenzie at mmckenzie@nwhealth.edu.

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