Acupuncturist
Quick Facts
Median Salary$88,653
Most Common EducationMaster's degree
Projected 10-Year Growth+17.81%
Assessment MatchTake the Assessment
What They Do
An Acupuncturist provides acupuncture treatments to patients to help relieve pain, prevent illness or restore general good health and well-being.
Core Tasks:
- Maintain and follow standard quality, safety, environmental, and infection control policies and procedures.
- Adhere to local, state, and federal laws, regulations, and statutes.
- Treat patients using tools, such as needles, cups, ear balls, seeds, pellets, or nutritional supplements.
- Identify correct anatomical and proportional point locations based on patients' anatomy and positions, contraindications, and precautions related to treatments, such as intradermal needles, moxibustion, electricity, guasha, or bleeding.
- Develop individual treatment plans and strategies.
- Insert needles to provide acupuncture treatment.
- Evaluate treatment outcomes and recommend new or altered treatments as necessary to further promote, restore, or maintain health.
- Collect medical histories and general health and lifestyle information from patients.
- Maintain detailed and complete records of health care plans and prognoses.
- Educate patients on topics, such as meditation, ergonomics, stretching, exercise, nutrition, the healing process, breathing, or relaxation techniques.
- Assess patients' general physical appearance to make diagnoses.
- Analyze physical findings and medical histories to make diagnoses according to Oriental medicine traditions.
- Consider Western medical procedures in health assessment, health care team communication, and care referrals.
- Dispense herbal formulas and inform patients of dosages and frequencies, treatment duration, possible side effects, and drug interactions.
- Apply heat or cold therapy to patients using materials, such as heat pads, hydrocollator packs, warm compresses, cold compresses, heat lamps, or vapor coolants.
- Formulate herbal preparations to treat conditions considering herbal properties, such as taste, toxicity, effects of preparation, contraindications, and incompatibilities.
- Treat medical conditions, using techniques such as acupressure, shiatsu, or tuina.
- Apply moxibustion directly or indirectly to patients using Chinese, non-scarring, stick, or pole moxa.
What to expect as an Acupuncturist
1Earn a Master's degree
15% of people achieve this level of education.
2Gain skills and experience
See Acupuncturist related courses on Tallo
3Land a job
203 openings for Acupuncturists
Career Progression
in United States (Nation)
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