Go to the 2019 Academy of Medical Acupuncture Symposium!

Medical Acupuncture is the society journal for the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture (AAMA). This Spring, the Academy will host its 31st annual symposium. You should be very excited about attending this event. It will take place in Phoenix, AZ, on April 11–14, 2019, at the Sheraton Hotel. This will be your one-step destination to marvel about medical acupuncture. David Miller, MD, LAc, Freda Dreher, MD, FAAMA, vice-chair Anna Esparham, MD, and other committee members are working very hard to make this happen. The theme is “The Art of Healing: Acupuncture Pearls in Clinical Practice.”

Why attend? I cannot emphasize how beneficial it will be to be there. Day after day, we work providing care for our patients. Did it ever occur to you that better acupuncture techniques to replace the ones you have been using for decades might be found at this symposium? There will be a plethora of acupuncture-related subjects that will just dazzle you. Come, and have a look at the AAMA's website.^* You will see what I am talking about. The workshops and lectures planned will revivify your knowledge and breathe new Qi into your clinical practice.

What a wonderful opportunity you will have at the symposium to browse the equipment on display by the many vendors and perhaps purchase them at discounts. Your tired electrical stimulator of 20 years ago might not even meet current U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidelines. You will be surprised at how new technology has made an impact on and invaded our profession.

I have saved the very best and most important reason for you to participate at the symposium. It is the people who attend that make up this world-class gathering. There will be many people to meet. That's right, you will be able look over there and see your old friend who took the Helm's course with you. He won't look like Iron Man anymore, but he will still have that warm smile and extended hand to welcome you. Finally, please do me a big favor and introduce that new AAMA member you brought to the Symposium. Share your enthusiasm about our profession and help build membership. We have one only one AAMA Society, so make it count for life.

By the way, if you spot Col (Ret) Arnyce R. Pock, MD, FACP, at the AAMA meeting, please congratulate her. Read below to understand why. There are many AAMA members who distinguish our Society. We can learn a lot from these individuals—and how fortunate it will be that we could have these interactions.

Dr. Pock is an associate editor on our journal's editorial board and is the associate dean of curriculum at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences (USUHS). She has brought honor to us and to our profession. Here is why: USUHS has been selected as one of the four national awardees of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Curricular Innovation Award. The award application was submitted by Dr. Pock and focused on the manner in which senior USUHS medical students are trained in the Battlefield Acupuncture technique and how this can be an effective means of nonpharmacologic pain management.

The AAMC^† is the preeminent organization for academic medicine. Membership includes the 168 U.S and Canadian medical schools that are accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, along with “nearly 400 major teaching hospitals and health systems, including 51 Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers; and more than 80 academic societies.”¹