TCC Teacher (and former AMA executive) advises teachers on how to approach healthcare facilities to offer TCC classes

…I hope to work with Ed to develop specific language and put together a packet when I have time. In the meantime you could put together a clean looking folder with the following:

1. Develop a letter or make a telephone call requesting an interview or the opportunity to provide a demonstration:

• introduce yourself, indicating when you were accredited

• provide brief information about the development of TCC.

• develop a paragraph identifying benefits OF MOST INTEREST to a healthcare institution. For example:

– Safe and effective for all patient populations and staff (no reported incident of anyone being hurt from doing TCC).
– Can be used to support almost any rehabilitation, recovery, or behavior modification program.
– Easy to learn, easy to share with others.
– For everybody

• For mobile patients, improves physical and emotional balance, reduces stress, enhances sense of well-being

• For people in wheelchairs, improves seated balance and same as above

• For people in bed, improves emotional balance and same as above

• For staff, creates the above benefits and provides a healthy alternative for breaks (replaces smoking, eating snacks, drinking caffeine, sugary, or carbonated drinks)

“Physical balance” includes metabolism, blood pressure, etc., but be cautious of making any claim not supported by a research report on your list. You can say that your students, other TCC teachers, etc., have experienced improvements in special areas, including reduced pain, but speak in terms of SYMPTOMS, NOT DISEASES. For example, less stiffness and less pain related to arthritis, not “It cured my student’s arthritis.”

2. Access the AMA Home page at ama-assn.org and do back-slash “diversity,” which takes you to the Cultural Competence Initiative Page. There is a prompt for the Cultural Competence Compendium table of contents. Select the section on Complementary and Spiritual Practices and print out the intro, which includes T’ai Chi Chih, and the entry on T’ai Chi Chih toward the end of that section. Include the inside cover of the book for publication information.

3. Copy the letter from [Dr. Michael Scotti, AMA Vice President of Medical Education] to Justin Stone, printed in the VF, [“News Shorts,” Sept. 1999] about the contributions of TCC to cultural competence.

4. Include a list of publications on the safety and efficacy of TCC and of any form of t’ai chi, chi kung, or meditation.

– Hannah Hedrick