The Indian Board of Alternative Medicines offers a short-term correspondence course in acupuncture. Correspondence courses are taught primarily over email, so there's no need to move to India to enroll in this course. Textbooks and other materials will be mailed to you when you enroll, and you will study independently (without much teacher assistance) for a final examination, which is conducted online. This course lasts six months and costs $350, which includes the price of textbooks. It will give you a foundation in anatomy, human body function (physiology) and human body disorders (pathology), in addition to teaching you acupuncture techniques and fundamentals. You must have a high school diploma or the equivalent in order to enroll in this course. The Indian Board of Alternative Medicine is accredited with a variety of international institutions, including the Center for Frontier Sciences at Temple University, East West University of Holistic Health Sciences and the Canadian Medical Acupuncture Society.
Indian Board of Alternative Medicines
80 Chowringhee Road
Calcutta 700 020
India
0091-9830150844
altmedworld.net/
Nicolas Flamel College offers a correspondence course in acupuncture for $155. This course provides instruction on the foundations of acupuncture, as well as the practice of locating and stimulating acupuncture points on the human body. The textbook for the course (which is included in the enrollment fee) is "Acupuncture, Meridian Theory and Acupuncture Points" by Dr. Li Dong, a Chinese acupuncture practitioner. Flamel College claims they will issue a certificate after the completion of the final examination. Although this program is accredited with some institutions, this course will not be recognized by most colleges and will not enable you to practice acupuncture. However, Ripoff Report and a handful of other websites warn that Flamel College has a history of poor response to emails, no response to refund requests and poor customer service. The college's website does not have a telephone number and the school did not respond to an email request for comment.
Flamel College
P.O. Box 22309
Sacramento, CA 95822-0309
flamelcollege.org
The International Institute of Holistic Healing offers a correspondence course in acupressure, a technique which is based on the same principles as acupuncture but does not use needles. Instead, pressure is applied to the acupuncture point in order to produce a similar result. This course will not teach you how to perform acupuncture with needles, but it will teach you how to locate acupressure points on the body and use them to treat common complaints. The course is four hours long and costs $195. The International Institute of Holistic Healing is recognized by the American Association of Nutritional Consultants, but this particular certificate program is not sufficient preparation to become a certified acupuncture practitioner.
International Institute of Holistic Healing, Inc.
PO Box 944
Lancaster, TX 75146
972-227-3445
DoctorAJAdams.com