Acupuncture Society of South Dakota

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Colleges of acupuncture have existed in the United States for over 30 years and many decades more throughout Asia. Graduating from one of these accredited colleges is the first step in becoming a properly trained acupuncturist (typically a four year 3,400 hour Masters degree; add an additional two years and 2,000 hrs for a Doctoral degree with 550-1000+ hours of supervised clinical internship).

As a patient seeking acupuncture care please consider calling one of these practitioners first (before a chiropractor that simply dabbles in acupuncture with a 100-300 hour weekend training course). These acupuncture doctors can help you and give you the safest and highest quality of care you are looking for from a practitioner. Simply put, for a master acupuncturist, acupuncture is their focused field of expertise and it is part of the vast healing system of traditional Asian medicine. It is not simply some treatment modality that was added to a practitioner's "tool box". Many non-acupuncturists have arrogantly done this while not honoring the science and depth of study and practice this ancient healing art requires to be a skilled, safe and effective practitioner. They disregard the dedication, knowledge and skill of true acupuncturists by taking a few weekend courses or an elective introductory course at their chiropractic school and then hold themselves out to the public as being adequately trained in acupuncture. Just because these non-acupuncturists have a loop hole in their profession's practice act that allows them to perform acupuncture does not mean they have to take advantage of it. Ask them from what acupuncture college they graduate from and how many hours was their training. It is best to be safe and seek care from a properly trained acupuncturist with far more that ten or even 30-40 times more education in the field of acupuncture.