Getting credit for hyperbarics

August 28th, 2008, 2:37 pm · Post a Comment · posted by Sam Miller, The Orange County Register

When the International Hyperbarics Association used to put on conferences and workshops, it would get about 20-30 physicians to attend. But when the association hosts physicians at a conference in Pittsburgh this fall, about 150 are likely to show.

The reason for the change: IHA workshops now get what is known as CME approval, a stamp of support from the American Academy of Family Practitioners that gives physicians credit for showing up.

That change is part of the long-term strategy HBOT advocates have for bringing the treatment into the mainstream for autism. (More on HBOT here.)

“Physicians tell me: If it’s not taught in medical school, forget it,” Shannon Kenitz told me during a tour of California Integrative Hyberbarics Center, the clinic she opened in Irvine a year ago.

When the International Hyperbarics Association — of which she’s executive director — used to put on conferences, physicians rarely attended. She would cold-call physicians to invite them and the response was always the same: “If it doesn’t have CME next to it, I’m not going.”

CME stands for continuing medical education. Doctors must get a certain amount of CME credits regularly to keep their licenses.

The CME approval comes from the American Academy of Family Practitioners, who review thousands of requests each year. Applications are time-consuming and can be expensive. The IHA must provide an overview of what doctors will learn, the teaching methods that are going to be used, the follow-up activities, and much more.

“It’s terribly difficult and it takes forever,” said Wendy Chappell, executive director of the International College of Integrative Medicine, which is putting on the larger Pittsburgh conference the IHA is part of.

The IHA, Kenitz says, is the first group to get CME approval for hyperbaric therapies for neurological disorders. The first conference with CME approval, she said, had “a huge spike” in physicians attending. The October conference will be the seventh approved IHA event.

Much of mainstream medicine still frowns on HBOT for treating autism, despite the IHA’s efforts at funding some small research projects and putting on workshops. But, Kenitz says, “I learned that if I did (get CME approval) I would definitely have some credibility beyond the hyperbarics world.”

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