When it matriculated its first students in 2010 the Yo San University Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine program (DAOM) was the first Traditional Chinese Medicine doctoral program in the nation with a specialty in reproductive medicine. The program, which is designed for experienced practitioners, is formatted to include intensive didactic and clinical residency sessions one weekend each month for two years.
Inspired by the practice and writings of Yo San University founder, Dr. Daoshing Ni (who is a frequent faculty member in the program), The Yo San University DAOM Reproductive Medicine specialty program graduated its first cohort of 12 new Doctors of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine in December of 2011. What added value for already licensed acupuncturists emerges from the investment of time, energy and funds to earn a doctoral degree?
That question is easily answered by program graduate, Dr. Cindy Splies. For Cindy, who is the mother of four children, and who has a busy TCM practice in Ventura, Calif., the doctoral program added at least two new levels of competence.
The first and most obvious factor is the significantly enhanced knowledge of techniques and methods in the Reproductive Medicine specialty area. The second is the thorough and scholarly engagement of the existing body of both Western and TCM research regarding reproductive medicine. For Cindy Splies an even higher level of competence has been evidenced by her own contribution to that body of published research.
An article based on Cindy's doctoral Capstone research project, which focused on how TCM practitioners use the Stener-Victorin and the Paulus protocols in the treatment of fertility patients, was recently published in The American Acupuncturist (2012, Vol. 61 pp. 19-25). The publication of The American Acupuncturist article coincides with the announcement that the author of one of the protocols examined in Cindy's research, Swedish researcher, Elisabet Stener-Victorin, will conduct a continuing education event on Yo San University's Los Angeles campus on Saturday April 14,2013. For further information regarding that upcoming event see the Yo San University Website at www.yosan.edu.
Structured water (H3O2) can be considered a fourth state of water between liquid and solid. It has the hexagonal structure of ice; however, missing a critical bond, it behaves more like a gel than a solid, but retains some of its crystalline structure.
In the past five years of my clinical practice, I have seen an astonishing upsurge in the chronic use of proton-pump inhibitor (PPI) medications for the gastrointestinal issue diagnosed by allopathic medicine as GERD. It is not uncommon to encounter patients taking these prescriptions for five-plus years.
Working with chronically ill patients entails acknowledging the reality that not all patients will survive their diagnosis. Chinese medicine and acupuncture play a crucial role in palliative and end-of-life care, addressing medication and disease side effects, alleviating pain associated with death, reducing anxiety and stress, and helping patients find peace during the dying process.
