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To help medical doctors practicing Kampo medicine suggest appropriate acupuncture treatments for individ ual patients, a study group made up of 7 acupuncturists and 5 medical doctors developed an acupuncture cur riculum. The group provided a learning program based on the curriculum for 16 medical doctors in charge of outpatient Kampo services in a research institute. The learning program consisted of a lecture and practical training, and a total of 4 sessions were held. At the end of each session, a test was conducted to examine the participants' level of understanding. After the completion of the learning program, a questionnaire survey was conducted to confirm the usefulness of the acupuncture curriculum for the practice of Kampo medicine. The mean number of participants per session was 10.8 ± 1.3. The mean test score was 9.3 ± 0.5 (full score : 10). In the questionnaire, 14 out of the 16 (88%) answered that the acupuncture curriculum was useful or relatively useful for the practice of Kampo medicine. On comparing the numbers of new acupuncture patients with a his tory of outpatient Kampo service use before and after the acupuncture curriculum, there was a 1.8fold in crease after it. The results support the usefulness of the acupuncture curriculum to understand acupuncture and practice Kampo medicine. Further evaluation is necessary.

Our institute performs retained acupuncture for cold-related symptoms using planar electric heaters. After placing retained acupuncture needles at 8 points on the lower back, the site is covered with a planar electric heater and heated for 20 minutes, with the 6-channel dial of the device set at 5, the second highest temperature. Using this method, we treat and examine patients with cold-related symptoms. If patients feel discomfort during the heating process, the procedure is continued when heat is used for treatment and immediately terminated in the case of examination. On examining related adverse events in 75 cases (224 sessions) within the 8-month period between March and October 2016, there was soreness/irritation of the skin surface in 5 (2.2%), itching in 3 (1.3%), and physical deconditioning in 1 (0.4%). However, all of these events were mild and temporary, supporting the safety of the method. As a future challenge, it may be necessary to expand this study to clinical research on traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture/moxibustion. cold pattern, planar electric heater, retained acupuncture, safety

This study reports the efforts of acupuncturists to promote multidisciplinary cooperation in our laboratory. We conducted a questionnaire survey involving all employees of our laboratory in December 2013 to investigate problems regarding multidisciplinary cooperation, and identified a lack of information and problems concerning treatment plans and costs. After implementing measures to tackle these problems between January and November 2014, we conducted the questionnaire survey again. As the results, 79% of the employees responded that they had gained more information about acupuncture compared to the previous year, and 72% of them responded that treatment plans and costs were appropriate. Compared to the number of new patients who sought acupuncture treatment between January and November 2013 (n = 273), there was an increase of 40% in the same period of 2014 (n = 385). These results showed that employees' understanding of acupuncture and multidisciplinary cooperation were promoted. Kampo, acupuncture, multidisciplinary cooperation, questionnaire survey