Category: Alumni Spotlights

About Sapho

Sapho is a queer non-binary East Asian Medicine practitioner who has a background in social work, nursing, and massage therapy. Their passion to work with people of all genders, bodies, abilities, race, economic status, age has cultivated their experience over the years. They have a strong motivation to work with people who are in any kind of life transition, grief, hormonal transitions, anxiety, depression, sleep and digestion issues. Their focus is to encourage and support an individual’s movement towards freedom and a sense of wholeness by providing a safe space to heal and grow.

Q & A
What was the catalyst for you to explore practicing East Asian Medicine & attend acupuncture school?

I was a bodyworker/massage therapist for several years and started working at …

Explore Erin’s journey as an Asian American herbalist and acupuncturist. We love learning about the personal and transformative journey her career has taken into showcasing her identity as an Asian American practicing traditional East Asian medicine. You can learn more about her herbal shop and her experiences with AIMC. Read more!

“When people come to us for help, they may not necessarily be their best selves, so how do we meet them where they are and do something that’s really with them, and not for them or in spite of them… that relationship is really a sacred one. I’m not doing anything for you, I’m just with you– I’ve had my own journey, and I can share with you my experience and I can share with you my experience with other people, and then together we get to figure out what works best for you.”

The “Reluctant” Healer

Before starting Acupuncture & Integrative Medicine school, Karen Villanueva was a nurse for over 20 years; she worked in the ER, ICU, prison system, and even at the ballpark. …

We recently had the chance to sit down with Licensed Acupuncturist, self-published author, and AIMC Masters & Doctoral graduate Kristen “tank” Conner and chat about their book, their experience as a two-time student at AIMC, and their unique style of practice. Tank uses they/them pronouns, which we will be using throughout this article.

Ehlers-Danlos & the Difficulty of Diagnosis

Tank had lived with a web of various symptoms and discomforts since early childhood before finally receiving a diagnosis in their mid-30s that brought it all together: Hypermobile Type Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS). They came to this self-diagnosis before any of their doctors were willing or able to recognize it, and, during their time at AIMC while studying to earn their Master’s degree, a doctor finally referred them …

“Every person who comes to a queer self-understanding knows in one way or another that her stigmatization is intricated with gender, with the family, with notions of individual freedom, the state, public speech, consumption and desire, nature and culture, maturation, reproductive politics, racial and national fantasy, class identity, truth and trust, censorship, intimate life and social display, terror and violence, health care, and deep cultural norms about the bearing of the body.[…]Queers do a kind of practical social reflection just in finding ways of being queer.”
-Michael Warner, Fear of a Queer Planet

East Asian Medicine as a liberation practice?

Acupuncturists are always fundamentally focused on the free flow of energy in the body– the “Qi”. You may have heard your acupuncturist talk about “Qi stagnation” as …

It’s been three years since our first Doctoral Cohort began. We wondered, “what are our graduates doing with their Doctoral degrees?” It turns out, they’re pushing our field forward by teaching, publishing books, working alongside physicians in hospitals, physical therapy clinics, & integrative medicine clinics, founding their very own wellness centers, and even growing organic herbal medicine to make our field more sustainable.

Teach

Many of our doctoral graduates are teaching or supervising Clinic Interns right here at AIMC. The list includes Dr. Nishanga Bliss, DAIM, DSc., LAc.; Dr. Hideko Pelzer, DAIM, LAc.; Dr. Joyce Kwok, DAIM, PT, LAc.; Dr. Jody James, DAIM, LAc.; Dr. David Caruso-Radin, DAIM, LAc.; & Dr. Christine Tarradelles, DAIM, LAc.

Dr. Jody James is the most recent …

Opening a private practice during a pandemic may seem daunting, but AIMC graduate Syndey Malewar made it happen. She’s now successfully working as a practitioner here in Berkeley. To find out how she made this happen, check out this blog post!

In this interview, AIMC graduate Ra shares her experience using the wisdom of Chinese Medicine, what she calls “Acu-therapy,” at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital.

Ra’s day-to-day in the hospital keeps her on her toes as she offers pain relief and palliative care to a wide range of pediatric patients from neonates to young adults. In addition to her usual work in the hospital, they discuss her experience as a clinician doing Telemedicine during Covid 19 & returning to work with the hospital’s new protective protocols. Ra’s expertise working in an integrative setting and blending the wisdom of Western and Eastern medical knowledge are on full display in this fun interview.

About Dr. Ra, DACM, LAc.

Robyn “Ra” Adcock is a California licensed acupuncturist, graduate …

Last August, exactly one week after taking the California Licensing Exam (CALE) in Sacramento, I was diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer, secondary to a cancer that started somewhere below my diaphragm. It was a shock to get that diagnosis.

I was so excited to begin my new career as an acupuncturist after being a poor college student for four years. It’s been an incredible journey – incredibly painful and at the same time incredibly healing. I first debated whether or not to go to the emergency room for a pain in my right rib cage. It turned out to be a pleural effusion – the emergency room doctors and nurses thought it was strange that I wanted to take a picture of the fluid they drained …

Alzada Magdalena will speak at a brown bag lunch at AIMC Berkeley on Friday, April 7, 12-1pm

Alzada Magdalena, a 2001 Graduate of AIMC Berkeley (back when it was called Meiji College), has two acupuncture practices—one in Davis, CA and the other in Prineville, Oregon.At her two practices, The Healing Arts, she treats patients, teaches Qi gong, meditation and dietary practices.

Alzada began her acupuncture practice in 2002, merging it with her existing bodywork practice.

Two years later she opened a clinic in a remodeled bungalow in downtown Davis, California, and practiced there until 2011. In 2011 she and her family moved to Bend, Oregon.However, her Davis patients requested she come back to take care of them, and so she has done so.She has returned to …