PIHMA Hires New Academic Dean
The Phoenix Institute of Herbal Medicine and Acupuncture has hired Dr. Amy Kahn to serve as its academic dean and diversity director. The appointment of Dr. Kahn adds a person to the institute's ranks with a wealth of business experience who also has worked in the field of education for more than a decade.
Dr. Kahn received her doctorate in human and organization systems from Fielding Graduate University, and her master's degree in international management from the American Graduate School of International Management. She has been published or featured in several prominent magazines and newspapers, including Arizona Woman Magazine, Black Enterprise Magazine, and the Arizona Republic. In addition to her duties at PIHMA, she represents the institute on the Council of Colleges of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine's Special Needs Committee.
Florida Newscaster Credits Pregnancy, Birth of Child to Acupuncture
More than anything, Jacquie Sosa, a television news anchor in Orlando, Fla., wanted to be a mother. For more than five years, she and her husband attempted to conceive a child, turning first to artificial insemination and fertility drugs, then to fertility specialists, and then finally to in vitro fertilization. So intent were the Sosas on having a child that they eventually sold their house to help pay for fertility treatments.
"They could not find anything wrong with me," Sosa said. "It was physically and financially draining."
After numerous failed attempts, the Sosas turned to Heidi Regier, an acupuncturist in Winter Park who had been successful in treating infertility among women in central Florida. Jacquie Sosa received a series of treatments designed to regulate menstrual flow, relieve tension and correct energetic imbalances. After two sessions with Reiger, Sosa learned that she had become pregnant; a few months afterward, she gave birth to healthy baby girl.
"I never needed the in vitro," Sosa said. "The acupuncture is all I needed." Reiger added that she was "hugely proud and honored" to have played a part in Sosa's pregnancy and childbirth.
Chronic pain afflicts over 20% of the adult population. Sadly, most MDs have essentially no education in treating pain, beyond offering a few toxic medications. Then they tend to steer people with pain away from those health practitioners who are trained. This puts the acupuncture community on the front lines for addressing this epidemic.
When the body is going through a stressful event, the sympathetic system is activated. This activation will help the body with a life-threatening situation. If this state is activated for prolonged periods of time, it starts to consume energy. These traumatic events that generate stressors in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) will eventually become internalized.
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One of the things that makes acupuncture so difficult to measure is that the medicine actually does contain some esoteric aspects. There have been numerous studies that demonstrate the neurochemical reasoning behind why acupuncture points stimulate the autonomic nervous system to enact change However, not all the benefits of TCM can easily be measured by randomized, controlled trials. But does that make them fundamentally and definitively untrue?
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