Chinese medicine is being paid more and more attention abroad, and many foreigners have already purchased Chinese medicine cream formulas to produce Chinese health care products, and 70% of Western doctors in Australia recommend patients to go to acupuncture for conditioning after seeing a doctor. According to the data, the number of acupuncturists in the United States reached 45,000 in 2009, among which the number of acupuncturists in California reached 15,000. Some industry insiders expect that at this rate of development, the number of registered acupuncturists in the United States is likely to exceed that of China. One wonders why acupuncture is growing so fast in the United States. Although Chinese medicine is known as alternative and complementary medicine in the United States, the Western medical community in the United States takes acupuncture very seriously. Acupuncture is not only used for subhealth management and prevention, but is also widely used in the therapeutic field. Ding Wenjing, president of the North American Medical Education Foundation, who has been working in the U.S. medical field for more than 20 years, told Beijing Business News, “I have a classmate who obtained his medical license in the U.S. and became a Western medical anesthesiologist, and the hospital where he worked sent him to China to study acupuncture and anesthesia. Ding Wenjing introduced that there were 27,000 registered acupuncturists in the United States in 2003, and about 45,000 in 2009, and many American Western doctors do acupuncture without registration. According to “The Legend of Acupuncture in America” published by People’s Health Publishing House, there are more than 40 types of acupuncture methods in the United States, and acupuncture is legally recognized as an independent therapy. The typical requirement is that a 200-300 hour course in acupuncture can be obtained from a physician who is licensed to practice acupuncture, and is not required to take a unified examination. The industry says that Western physicians with acupuncture qualifications are a special force in acupuncture in the U.S. They are in the mainstream of medicine, are well educated in modern medicine, and once they agree on the value of acupuncture, they will apply it in clinical practice, which will promote the integration of acupuncture into modern medicine, and will also play a positive role in promoting acupuncture legislation, health insurance payments, and scientific research. U.S. acupuncture education is short and the curriculum is open “The acupuncture curriculum in the U.S. is only about the very practical part, and licensed acupuncturists can practice medicine.” Ding Wenjing said. “And the acupuncture course in the U.S. is open to other majors, too. One American girl, after her master’s degree in computer science in school, felt that acupuncture was very practical and started to learn the acupuncture course.” It is understood that in this country non-medical majors who want to enroll in a clinical program at a medical school are not allowed to do so. In the United States, most states have regulations for licensed acupuncturists, for example, they must be graduates of a formal acupuncture school of three years or more, study more than 2,000 hours, and pass a unified qualifying exam before they can apply for an acupuncture license. In China, on the other hand, it takes ten years for acupuncture clinicians to complete their studies. According to Du Lin, deputy chief physician of the acupuncture department of Dongzhimen Hospital of Beijing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, in order to become an acupuncturist in a Chinese hospital, one must first undergo at least five years of full-time undergraduate study in a formal medical school with basic theoretical knowledge of Chinese medicine, and then enter a hospital for two years of standardized training after graduation, both of which are facing general practitioners of Chinese medicine, and not only for acupuncture. The first stage of the acupuncture department in the hospital, there will be a special clinical teaching, this stage takes one or two years, the initial entry into the department of Chinese medicine physicians can not independently operate acupuncture, need to have seniority of Chinese medicine from the side of guidance, to their real hands fast at least six months, slow also take a year or two. “Overall, it takes at least ten years for a TCM acupuncturist to go from theoretical study to clinical introduction.” U.S. TCM clinics open with low cost and high consumption TCM clinics in the United States, whose business includes acupuncture, massage, physical therapy and so on. Beijing Business News reporter learned that it costs about 3 million yuan to open a medium-sized clinic in Beijing, from applying for a license to opening, rent, personnel and so on, and it also takes several months to apply for a business license for a TCM clinic. For the figure of 3 million yuan, Ding Wenjing felt surprised that the cost of opening a TCM clinic in the U.S. is not high, renting a house and applying for a license is very short and can be taken in a day or two. “The threshold for acupuncturists in the U.S. is not high. I have a classmate who studied sports medicine, and he started his business after getting his acupuncture license through training. There are TCM clinics that can be covered by Medicare.” The practice of acupuncturists in U.S. TCM clinics follows the relevant provisions of the U.S. acupuncture law. Although the content of acupuncture laws varies from state to state, acupuncture has gradually grown in size with regulatory protections. 5,525 acupuncturists were licensed in the United States in 1992, 5,640 in 1993, 6,545 in 1994, 8,694 in 1996, 10,623 in 1998, 14,228 in 2000, 27,000 in 2003, and 45,000 in 2009. It is known that 4% of American adults received acupuncture treatment in 2002, 3.17 million people received acupuncture in 2007, and patients paid$823 million out of their own pockets for acupuncture in 2007, with an average out-of-pocket expenditure of$47 per acupuncture session. In the United States acupuncture can treat back and leg conditions, chronic diseases, and unexplained pain. “A classmate opened a high-end Chinese medicine clinic in New York, doing acupuncture for wealthy locals and charging several hundred dollars a time.” Ding Wenjing said.