AAAOM Conference and Exposition 2009
Celebrate Spring: Transitions with the AAAOM
April 23-26, 2009
Greetings AAAOM Member:
Spring is a great time to be in Sacramento, when the plentiful trees here are blooming. AAAOM members will be able to say goodbye to cold-weather conferences, as we adopt a spring schedule beginning with our homecoming conference in April, 2009.
Come join us to Celebrate Spring: Transitions with the AAAOM. All future AAAOM conferences and expos will be held in the spring of each year. The 2009 event will unfold just blocks from AAAOM’s Corporate Headquarters in Sacramento California at the Hyatt, Capitol Park, across the street from the California State Capitol. Sacramento has more trees per capita than any other city in the world, so we hope you will enjoy the dappled shadows under our urban canopy of English Elms and other stately trees.
There is much to look forward to in Sacramento! Here’s a sneak peak of events:
Founded in 1849, we’re poised to celebrate our rich 160 year state history. We’re proud to call Sacramento home for AAAOM’s corporate offices, and it’s truly exciting to be the host city for the AAAOM’s Transitions Conference 2009. Kindred to our profession and this event, Sacramento’s downtown area has transitioned from a “destination…not” to a stroller’s paradise—with tree-lined, well preserved, Victorian-era homes. Our city has arrived with its hot, hip, walkable, stylish neighborhoods that boast dozens of trendy white-linen restaurants and kicked-back eateries, one-of-a-kind boutique shops, coffee and tea houses, dessert diners, and galleries galore…all creating a sophisticated bohemian vibe.
The 2009 conference features two rather profound aspects of AOM: fertility and integrative medicine. As we look at both tracks, some workshops offer not only state-of-the-art clinical advancements in these areas, but, equally, they open the door to new applications and opportunities for expansion of AOM into far greater realms of modern healthcare—addressing health impacts that reflect on core societal needs.
On Thursday our pre-conference activities will open with two featured events: a Master’s Level course on Korean Saam Acupuncture, taught by Yong-Suk Kim OMD, PhD, Seoul, Korea, and Acupuncture Awareness Day. At Expo 2008 in Chicago, AAAOM offered a 4-hour workshop on Saam Acupuncture taught by a delegation of four practitioners from Korea. The course, in attendance by more than 90 practitioners, received “rave reviews” with many comments expressing how the 4-hour workshop did not afford ample time to convey the depth of knowledge and experience presented. In response to this overwhelming feedback, we invited Dr. Kim to return and teach an 8-hour intensive Master’s Level course. The AAAOM is proud to re-open the door to this extraordinary example of cultural and professional exchange. This is a base of knowledge that is not readily available in the U.S. Due to class popularity, we recommend early enrollment!
Simultaneously, the AAAOM will host Acupuncture Awareness Day at the California State Capitol. Serving far beyond the needs of California practitioners, this day is designed to offer a blueprint for conducting public awareness campaigns in your own state capitals and communities. As a grassroots effort it is designed to reach out to the public-at-large such as legislators (and thus their constituencies), legislative staff, state agencies, and local government.
A few of the workshop highlights include: acupuncture for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) within the VA system; herbal research in clinical practice; neuroimaging in acupuncture; and Master Tung’s Magic Points for integrative medicine. There will be 20 CEUs in fertility, including the Essence of Essence taking us from an abstract concept to clinical considerations regarding infertility, a 4-part series detailing what patients should expect when expecting (which provides an overview of Western fertility treatment as it integrates with AOM and includes discussions about lab testing and hormonal assessment), managing hormone regulation and reproductive health through nutrition and herbal supplements, and the heart of the matter where spirit, mind and body integrate to address fertility challenges.
Please join us in Sacramento, and transition with us into a brighter future for the AOM profession!
Best,
Rebekah Christensen
Executive Director, AAAOM