Dr. Jennifer Blake-Holden had the privilege to study acupuncture and Chinese medicine concepts, as well as complete observation rounds, during her undergraduate years in Beijing, China, at the University of Economics and International Business Hospital She later received her master’s and doctorate degrees from Emperor’s College in Los Angeles. Before opening her own practice, Dr. Blake-Holden worked in hospital settings such as Venice Family Clinic (a subsidy of UCLA). Most recently, she completed a two-year residency with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, focusing on treating PTSD, substance abuse disorders and chronic pain. Currently, she holds hospitalist privileges at Providence Roy and Patricia Family Cancer Center.
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.