# Acupuncturists

> Diagnose, treat, and prevent disorders by stimulating specific acupuncture points within the body using acupuncture needles. May also use cups, nutritional supplements, therapeutic massage, acupressure, and other alternative health therapies.

- **SOC code:** 29-1291.00
- **Canonical URL:** https://singulariki.com/roles/role-29-1291-00
- **Also known as:** Acupuncture Physician, Acupuncturist, Herbalist, Licensed Acupuncturist (LAC), Acupuncture Doctor, Acupuncture Provider, Chinese Medical Doctor (Chinese MD), Chinese Medicine Doctor
- **Frame:** "AI exposure" means task overlap (how codifiable the work is), not jobs lost or a forecast. Every figure below is traced to a named public dataset.

## What this work is

**Core tasks** (O*NET):
- Maintain and follow standard quality, safety, environmental, and infection control policies and procedures.
- Adhere to local, state, and federal laws, regulations, and statutes.
- Treat patients using tools, such as needles, cups, ear balls, seeds, pellets, or nutritional supplements.
- Identify correct anatomical and proportional point locations based on patients' anatomy and positions, contraindications, and precautions related to treatments, such as intradermal needles, moxibustion, electricity, guasha, or bleeding.
- Develop individual treatment plans and strategies.
- Insert needles to provide acupuncture treatment.
- Evaluate treatment outcomes and recommend new or altered treatments as necessary to further promote, restore, or maintain health.
- Collect medical histories and general health and lifestyle information from patients.
- Maintain detailed and complete records of health care plans and prognoses.
- Educate patients on topics, such as meditation, ergonomics, stretching, exercise, nutrition, the healing process, breathing, or relaxation techniques.
- Assess patients' general physical appearance to make diagnoses.
- Analyze physical findings and medical histories to make diagnoses according to Oriental medicine traditions.

## Skills, tools, capabilities

**Knowledge, skills & abilities** (O*NET, highest importance first):
- Customer and Personal Service _(knowledge)_
- Medicine and Dentistry _(knowledge)_
- Active Listening _(essential_skill)_
- Oral Comprehension _(ability)_
- Oral Expression _(ability)_
- Problem Sensitivity _(ability)_
- Deductive Reasoning _(ability)_
- Near Vision _(ability)_
- Psychology _(knowledge)_
- Critical Thinking _(essential_skill)_
- Social Perceptiveness _(transferable_skill)_
- Service Orientation _(transferable_skill)_

**Skills in demand:**
- Deductive Reasoning _(Common Skill)_
- Active Listening _(Common Skill)_
- Psychology _(Specialized Skill)_
- Social Perceptiveness _(Common Skill)_
- Critical Thinking _(Common Skill)_
- Biology _(Specialized Skill)_
- English Language _(Common Skill)_
- Inductive Reasoning _(Common Skill)_
- Reading Comprehension _(Common Skill)_
- Finger Dexterity _(Common Skill)_
- Complex Problem Solving _(Common Skill)_
- Writing _(Common Skill)_

**Tools & technology:**
- Microsoft Excel _(hot technology)_
- Microsoft Office software _(hot technology)_
- Microsoft Outlook _(hot technology)_
- Microsoft Windows _(hot technology)_
- Microsoft Word _(hot technology)_
- AcuPartner Professional
- Electronic health record EHR software
- Miridia Technology AcuGraph
- Qchart
- Qpalm Acupuncture
- QPuncture II
- Trigram Software AcuBase Pro

## AI exposure & outlook

- **AI task-overlap index:** 14th percentile (Low) across all occupations — composite of current-era exposure studies (ai-exposure-index-v1).
- **LLM task exposure, γ (OpenAI / Eloundou):** 21st percentile (Low) — source: eloundou_gamma.
- **AI assistant applicability (Microsoft):** 13th percentile (Low) — source: microsoft_applicability.
- **Projected employment (BLS 2024–34):** 6.8% growth (About average); 0.9k annual openings; 15.3k → 16.4k jobs.
- **Pay & employment (BLS OEWS, May 2024):** median $78,140; 8,440 employed.

## Sources

- **O*NET** (30.3) — U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS)** (May 2024) — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS Employment Projections** (2024–2034) — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **Anthropic Economic Index** (v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27)) — Anthropic. https://www.anthropic.com/economic-index
- **Microsoft “Working with AI”** (working-with-ai) — Microsoft Research. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/
- **“GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.)** (arXiv 2303.10130) — OpenAI / academic. https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.10130

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_Generated from Singulariki's joined dataset; data snapshot 2026-06-02T21:00:32.945303+00:00. https://singulariki.com/roles/role-29-1291-00_