Claudia Citkovitz

Outline

• Medical safety, legal safety (3 types of error and their relation to malpractice suits), and emotional urgency. Ethical practice as: defining safe boundaries with respect to one's experience level, then installing reminders for self-monitoring those boundaries.
• Adverse events acupuncture safety in pregnancy; ongoing self-education and self-monitoring for knowledge and compliance.
• The relationship between adverse events, professional conduct, and threat of litigation (0.5 – 30 minutes)
• Seven 'red flags' that Acupuncturists can use to self-monitor for appropriate clinical consultation, referral, or urgent medical referral of pregnant women.
• Twelve 'pink post-its' that Acupuncturists can use to self-monitor for appropriate professional conduct with emotionally vulnerable patients.
• The importance and the challenge of maintaining appropriate and professional conduct when a patient interaction has been suboptimal.

Objectives 

Students taking this class will learn to:

• Understand which patients should be considered physically, cognitively or socially vulnerable, and what measures are appropriate to take in response.
• Recognize and manage emotional vulnerabilities such as transference, countertransference and magical thinking.
• Efficiently solicit and monitor verbal and nonverbal ‘assent’ at each step of treatment planning and execution
• Manage discussions with patients and doctors regarding ‘placebo effect’ in a positive manner that builds respect and collegial relations

Outline

• Physical and cognitive vulnerability
• Emotional vulnerability
• Talking about ‘placebo'
• Soliciting, monitoring and charting assent or ‘endorsement’ for each step

Day 1:

• Introduction, overview of the course, logistics, questions
• Anatomy and physiology of labor: the 3 stages of labor
• The challenge of being born: pelvic anatomy in detail; 4 key fetal movements
• OM view of pregnancy: initiation of labor, progress; roles of yin, yang, qi, blood
• Labor support: providing comfort in a normal labor

Day 2:

• Questions, review
• Tui Na protocols for progressing labor
• Pathogenesis and differential diagnosis in Labor and Delivery
• Acupuncture during L&D protocol: basic constitutional treatments
• Labor Preparation Toolkit (Lecture) & Labor Preparation Treatments (Demonstration)

Outcomes:

After taking the class, students will be able to:

• Use acupressure and acupuncture (where appropriate) to facilitate labor progress and comfort during a normal labor
• Use concepts of yin, yang, qi, blood and channel flow to understand and address common obstacles to progress during labor
• Help patients prepare for labor with acupressure and acupuncture as well as Chinese-medicine based movement, imagery and self-massage
• Identify and select appropriate preventive treatments for constitutional imbalances that may be associated with prolonged or difficult labor