Tag: Continuing Medical Education

“Eliminating cancer” with Traditional Chinese Medicine and other state-sanctioned quackery

State-approved continuing education courses pump a steady stream of fresh pseudoscience into acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine practice. Courses include claims of "eliminating cancer" and "reversing pediatric asthma" as well as anti-vaccination tropes.

/ October 24, 2019

AAFP Promotes Acupuncture

The AAFP is not following its own standards for CME. Its monograph on Musculoskeletal Therapies devotes 1/4 of its content to acupuncture, dry needling, and cupping; and one of its four "key practice recommendations" is to consider electroacupuncture for fibromyalgia.

/ October 9, 2018

AAFP: Functional Medicine lacks supporting evidence; includes “harmful” and “dangerous” treatments

The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) found Functional Medicine lacking in evidence and said some treatments are harmful and dangerous. The AAFP is right and should stick to its conclusions.

/ October 26, 2017

Is the ACCME cracking down on quackery in continuing medical education (CME) offerings? Richard Jaffe thinks so.

Richard Jaffe, a lawyer who has made a career out of defending quacks like Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski, thinks that the ACCME, the main accrediting body for continuing medical education (CME) credits, is cracking down on "complementary and alternative medicine" CME courses. That would be a very good thing indeed, but is it really happening? More importantly, would it be enough?

/ March 20, 2017

Learning quackery for Continuing Medical Education credit

The Integrative Addiction Conference 2015 (“A New Era in Natural Treatment”) starts tomorrow in Myrtle Beach, SC. Medical doctors, doctors of osteopathy, naturopaths and other health care providers will hear lectures on such subjects as “IV Therapies and Addiction Solutions,” given by Kenneth Proefrock, a naturopath whose Arizona Stem Cell Center specializes in autologous stem cell transplants derived from adipose tissue. Proefrock,...

/ August 20, 2015

AAFP CME Program Succumbs to “Integrative Medicine”

For many years I have been using Continuing Medical Education (CME) programs offered by the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). The FP Essentials program consists of a monthly monograph with a post-test that can be submitted electronically for 5 hours of CME credit. Over a 9-year cycle, a complete family medicine curriculum is covered to prepare participants for the re-certification board...

/ April 2, 2013

Bought and Sold: Who Should Pay for CME

There are two topics about which I am a crank. The first, as you might have guessed, is alternative medicine. The other is pharmaceutical reps. Drug companies are somewhat schizophrenic. They have amazing scientists who invent drugs that treat an astounding array of diseases. Then, they take these drugs and turn them over to marketing, to be sold with all the enthusiasm...

/ July 16, 2010

Acupuncture CME

Some Universities have more cachet than others. On the West coast it is Stanford that has the reputation as the best. There is Oxford, Yale, MIT, and maybe Whatsamatta U. I would wager that in most people’s mind the crème de la crème is Harvard. Harvard is where you find the best of the best. If Harvard is involved, a project gains...

/ July 2, 2010