The acupuncture and Oriental medicine profession made great strides in 2007, as the general public became more aware of the benefits of this important medicine. It all started with an introduction by Dr. Oz on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" back in February 2007. Now, acupuncture has gone prime time, with Acupuncture Today playing a supporting role in the Dec. 5, 2007 episode of the hit television show, "Private Practice," which airs Wednesday nights on ABC.
In the Dec. 5, 2007 episode, Dr. Pete Wilder (played by actor Tim Daly) is seen relaxing in his office at the Oceanside Wellness Group, reading the November 2007 issue of AT. According to the show's bio on Dr. Wilder, he is the resident holistic practitioner who specializes in forms of Eastern-derived alternative, complementary and integrative medicine. The show pegs him as a certified herbalist who spent five years in China learning alternative medicine. The show also describes Dr. Wilder as someone who combines medical acupuncture with nutritional and botanical modalities in the treatment of patients with a wide range of health conditions. This character has lectured locally and internationally on the subject of Oriental and Eastern medicine. With all of these qualified credentials, it's no wonder Dr. Wilder would be reading Acupuncture Today to keep up with the latest news and trends in the acupuncture world.
"Private Practice" was created as a spin-off of another hit ABC show, "Grey's Anatomy." It tells the story of the personal lives and medical practices of doctors working at the Oceanside Wellness Group, a truly integrative medical practice based in Santa Monica, Calif. According to the story line, the group not only includes Dr. Wilder but many other specialists, including Dr. Addison Forbes Montgomery (one of the foremost neonatal surgeons in the world); Dr. Violet Turner (a board-certified psychiatrist specializing in general adult and adolescent psychotherapy, diagnosis, evaluation and management of pharmacologic medication); Dr. Sam Bennett (the practice's internist); Dr. Naomi Bennett (a board-certified reproductive endocrinologist and fertility specialist); Dr. Cooper Freedman (a board-certified pediatrician); and William "Dell" Parker (receptionist and current student in the South Bay School of Holistic Midwifery and Family Nursing).
It remains to be seen if Acupuncture Today will make a future appearance in "Private Practice" or other TV shows. It also will be interesting to see what strides acupuncture and Oriental medicine will make in the mainstream world in 2008, as the importance of this medicine becomes more widely known and accepted.
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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