Qiological Podcast

The scientific method is useful. It helps us to better understand the world by screening out our biases, beliefs and wishful thinking. The process of crafting a good hypothesis begins not with a great question, but first the more yin process of observation. Seeing what is present, and from there we can begin to distill out questions worth asking.

Much of traditional research is not that helpful in understanding Chinese medicine, as our medicine does not lend itself to the binary world of double blind studies. Our medicine requires research methodologies that can handle emergent dynamic systems. And lucky for us, those models exist and one of the researchers who is keen on these models also happens to be a Chinese medicine practitioner.

In this special podcast episode researchers Lisa Taylor-Swanson and Lisa Conboy share with us the design of a study that is currently being carried at the Seattle Institute of East Asian Medicine on the treatment of symptoms that may be related to Covid19 disease using Chinese Herbal Medicine. This study is geared toward collecting data that will help to guide further research. It’s a study that considers Chinese medicine on its own terms. And this study’s design principles are not unlike the principles of our medicine.

Listen in for a look at how this study is being structured, and then check back in a few weeks as we’ll have a conversation with the practitioners at SIEAM who are treating patients and collecting the data.

Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.  

You’ve noticed in the treatment room, that moment when something “lands” for the patient, and there's a palpable internal shift. You’ve noticed this in yourself, that a question can be inviting as a whisper, or make you bristle like a growling dog.

In this conversation with Margot Rossi and Nick Pole we explore Embodied Language, a way of connecting that is friendly to both the body and spirit.

What we say, and how we say it can have a profound impact on the experience of both patient and practitioner. Listen in for how you can use language as skillfully as you use your needles.

Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.  

Getting a practice started is hard. Part of the process is recognizing the strengths and skills we already have, and the other part is being open to allowing our experience to teach us.

In this Part Two conversation with Lamya Kamel we look at how our practices ask us to grow in challenging, yet essential ways. And that while we may not have confidence in the beginning, over time it can arise when we approach our work with integrity and passion.

Listening is not a skill that I expected to develop. I thought I’d get good with palpation or pulse reading. After all, the masters are said to get what they need with the pause and a few questions. That’s what I was aiming for, however it did not work out that way for me.

I’ve found over the years that there is a way of listening to a patient that has allowed me to both uncover what I need to know to treat them, but more importantly, help me to better understand innate resources they have that they either are not in touch with, or curiously enough think are deficiencies or problems.

Listening is not passive, nor about just hearing what the patient says, it also involves an inner ear to our own experience.

This episode is a solo show in which I share some what my clinical experience has taught about an often overlooked yin aspect of our work— listening.

Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.  

Most of us are head’s down in our clinical work and focused on taking care of patients and running a business. It’s easy to forget that 40 years ago people were being arrested for doing acupuncture. As a profession in the West, we are new. Even without Covid-19 we often dealing with issues of growth, development, scope of practice, messaging and regulation that all professions go through.

And since we are in a time of challenge and change these issues become all the notable.

Listen in to the conversation with with NCCAOM CEO Mina Larson and Member at Large Afua Bromley as our national accrediting organization responds to the coronavirus and what it means for our profession.

Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.  

We are being invited, both by our conditions and circumstances and by people in our profession to “get online and do tele-medicine.” However much of what we do as acupuncturists does not translate well, as our most critical tool cannot be used in a digital form.

The questions that I’ve been noodling through for the past month plus are what is the essence of my work when I don’t have access to my kit of tools? And how would I describe what I do, when I can use my needles?

In this rebroadcast of a Lhasa webinar with Daniel Schulman, Alaine Duncan and Amy Mager as we explore the opportunities and challenges in this moment of transformation.

Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.