Chief Executive Officer, National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine

Kory Ward-Cook, PhD, MT (ASCP), CAE is chief executive officer of the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. She has over 35 years of experience as a medical laboratory professional, educator, and executive in association management. She is certified as a medical technologist, MT(ASCP) and is a Certified Association Executive (CAE). From 1999 to 2004, Ward-Cook served as the executive director for the American Society for Clinical Pathology’s (ASCP) Board of Registry and senior vice president for the ASCP.

Ward-Cook has served as a faculty member and a program director for both a Medical Laboratory Technician (MLT) program and a Medical Technology (MT) program. While serving at the MT program in the School of Allied Health Professions at the Ohio State University, she also maintained a joint faculty appointment in the Department of Pathology. As a tenured Associate Professor, she instructed and served as an advisor for undergraduate students in medical technology, graduate students in the School of Allied Health Professions and the Department of Pathology.

During her tenure at the NCCAOM, Ward-Cook has been instrumental in bringing computer based testing to the organization, and facilitated an 86% increase in the media and public awareness of the acupuncture and Oriental medicine profession through press releases and pubic relations efforts. In 2007, she orchestrated a relocation of the national headquarters from Alexandria, Virginia to Jacksonville, Florida.

In Ward-Cook's term as CEO, NCCAOM early involved itself in ACCAHC's work, including co-sponsoring the National Education Dialogue to Advance Integrated Health Care in 2005. NCCAOM subsequently sponsored two ACCAHC surveys relative to clarifying competencies of licensed acupuncturists for practice in integrative settings. Findings were presented at the Society for Acupuncture Research and the North American Research Conference on Complementary and Integrative Medicine and continue to inform ACCAHC's work.