Dr. Belinda Anderson is associate dean and professor at Pace University in the College of Health Professions, and associate clinical professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. An NIH-funded researcher, her recent research has involved clinical trials implementing acupuncture in community-based clinics, educating clinicians in research and evidence-based medicine, and the use of Chinese herbs to treat COVID-19 symptoms. Dr. Anderson is a licensed acupuncturist specializing in women’s health and fertility; and is a board member of the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine.
Fertility acupuncture sometimes gets presented as a narrow protocol: a handful of reproductive points applied uniformly across patients. What this case reinforced for me: The most powerful work happens when we read the whole picture. The hormone data, the constitutional tendency, the sleep, the digestion, and the menstrual pattern, so we can treat the environment the ovaries live inside.
Mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) affects more than 15% of the U.S. population but evades most practitioners’ radar. Just five years ago, it wasn’t even on my radar, despite already having 20 years of experience as a clinician at that time. The more I dug (similar to leaky gut and post-COVID syndrome), the more I found my patients were suffering from this disorder.
The motivation behind our practice of medicine is important, impacting not just our experience but also the experiences of those we treat. It is perhaps for this reason that the aspiration to help not just some, but all beings heal, has historically been an important part of the medical tradition. To explain this, we need to consider how medicine is interwoven with other social domains.