Yvonne Lau and Skye Sturgeon chat with Catherine Niemiec and Thomas Kouo on today's challenges in TCM education. (part 1)
Please enjoy this discussion with Yvonne Lau, Mayway President, and Dr. Skye Sturgeon of Mayway Herbs with Drs. Thomas Kouo and Catherine Niemiec, who are two prominent leaders in Traditional Chinese Medicine education. Thomas is the President of the Council of Colleges of Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine and the Vice-president of Academic Affairs at the Virginia University of Integrative Medicine. Catherine is the Vice-president of the Council of Colleges and the founder and President of the Phoenix Institute of Herbal Medicine & Acupuncture. (See complete bios at the end of the article.)
Discussion Participants:
- CN: Catherine Niemiec, JD, L.Ac.
- TK: Thomas Kouo, DAOM, L.Ac, Dipl.OM
- SS: Skye Sturgeon, DAOM, Quality Assurance Manager & Consultant for Mayway Herbs
- YL: Yvonne Lau, President of Mayway Herbs
SS: Catherine, how did you become interested in Chinese medicine, and what motivates you to be committed to East Asian medical education?
CN: The initial interest developed after I was working as an attorney in California. I went to law school there and was working as an attorney and the cold, damp weather of the Bay Area got into my lungs. I kept getting bronchitis combined with the stress that I was under, and the nurse practitioner said to me, you really want to get well, maybe in Oakland's Chinatown. So, I met her there on a Saturday and went into the shop, and they had all the raw herbs and barrels and things, and I went to sit in front of this gentleman at the end of the counter. He didn't speak any English. He was Chinese, and he just looked at my tongue, felt my pulses and brought out a prescription. I came home with a bag of raw herbs and twigs and leaves, poured in a pot with water, cooked it. My roommate's like, what is that smell? I strain it. Drink it, not even half a cup, and my lungs cleared. Oh, it caught my attention. I had never seen anything work that fast. And so over time, I went on to study herbal medicine. I took the Institute of Chinese Herbology Training course, then followed my father's advice to come home to warm Arizona again. At that point, I had become interested in acupuncture schools, and what was happening, and Arizona didn't have a school and didn't have an acupuncture law. I got involved with the State Association. So, with my background I helped get the law passed. We knew we had to have schools to get started, and so I used my credit cards. I was one of the founders of the school, which became mine because I had all the debt, and we created a really neat program that is now 30 years old, But really, the herbs are my favorite love. And so that started that whole process. You asked me what makes me committed to this medicine? When I came to realize what it could do, and how logical it was. Basic physics, quantum physics, if you will, and the medicine, and what it could do. And the miracles, and people need this. Our country needs this, our state needs this. And so, I became dedicated to that and continue to be. It's such a useful medicine. It's portable. A lot of people can learn this at a very basic level and broader and deeper and deeper. It's a great medicine, and so I stand by it.
YL: Amazing. 30 years later, here you are.
SS: How about you, Thomas? How did you become interested?
TK: My life actually has been kind of a very interesting, convoluted type of path, and when I was young, coming out of college [I] went into the arts. I'm Chinese-American, and so with my parents being 1st generation Chinese, I had the option of medicine, law, or medicine. So, I went into the arts. Several years in a couple of things happened. Chinese medicine has always been a part of my life on the periphery. Growing up [I spent]my summers overseas, it was always part of my family and wasn't foreign to me. It was just there, and something that I accepted because I had just been exposed to it from a very young age, never really thinking that this would be something that I would do later.
But medicine was always, I guess, supposed to be my future. When I went into the arts, when I was looking to make a change, I looked at medicine again and then got into the organic chemistry [classes] and realized that I'm going to do something else.
Also, at that time, my father became ill, and I started realizing some of the limitations that Western medicine had. Being sort of artistically inclined, my mind was attracted to the really philosophical underpinnings of Eastern medicine as an integral part of the practice, not just part of the study. So I just found my way. Learning that as a person kind of in between two cultures gave me an opportunity to learn more about this part of myself, my heritage, and my parents. I just found that it was something that spoke to my heart, and so in terms of being committed to education, I think first of all, you have to have a passion for this medicine. I think we can all look back and say that we've had some incredibly amazing experiences in this medicine. With the people, with what we've seen the medicine do for people and for health in general, we've touched the potential, or at least have seen the potential of what this can become here in a country that essentially is a frontier for the expansion of what we have to offer. And I think part of it is that it really has brought so much joy, but also just experience and growth to my life, that I think the commitment comes from an honest desire for others that are coming after to really feel that same thing and have those kinds of experiences. And be able to be where I've been and go further, and I think that is exciting, and something that is really important. Then, of course, the commitment to the medicine. You can't really ever arrive, you're constantly learning, and so that commitment is because you're constantly reaching, and constantly learning, and that's exciting, and that is, I think, probably the one of the greatest things in most arts, but certainly in this medicine that we can look to for inspiration, and for motivation.
CN: Yeah, you're never bored. I just want to tag on Thomas's thing I forgot to mention. I have a Filipino mother, and so I was raised to be a doctor, a lawyer, or marry one. Same thing, I think. It was taking physics twice to get a better grade that got me out. But I did find out years later that my great, great, grandfather in the Philippines was an herbalist. There's some heritage there.
YL: I'm just so grateful to all of you. We all have the same heart here, so it's just wonderful to hear these journeys. When it comes to students today, do you find them as idealistic as you were? Are they looking for a profession, or do they have this philosophical bent and love the medicine because of that, or they love herbs, or the idea of herbs versus drugs. What do you think motivates most students to go to TCM school these days?
CN: I think there's a variety. Usually, because they've been healed, that this medicine works. You might have some idealistic people, but also some who just want to have an independent lifestyle and earn money, and it's medical. Actually, a very common type of student is the one who's tired of their working career. Whatever it is, they're sitting behind a desk, and they want to make a difference, or they know in Western medicine that they're limited. So, it just depends.
TK: Yeah, I think what I've seen is that we're in a strange place right now, because the medicine is the medicine, but our profession is fluid right now. And I think that puts students in a very interesting position. Because again, we are trying to forge and figure out what our professional identity is, and what our professional future is. I think students are, in some ways, caught in between. We are trying to figure out what our definition is within that context right now. I think once we do, you'll start to see students really focus in more. Right now, as Catherine alluded to, we see a lot of different types of students wanting many, many different things. You have the traditional route of private practice, but now we have more opportunities starting to open up,but our training still is geared towards that traditional route. But we're starting to kind of acknowledge that we need to open up, so it's a very interesting time right now, and I think an exciting time or a positive time. You could look at it as scary, but I think most of us look at it as a wonderful opportunity for us to forge the future, that the graduates, our practitioners, and of course, our students and future students, deserve.
But we want to make sure that we don't make mistakes, and we do what's right for all of our stakeholders.
YL: So what kind of specific challenges do your schools or Chinese medicine schools in general face when it comes to recruiting students, with all the things that are fluid right now in the profession?
CN: First of all, the economy, because that's taken out many schools, not just acupuncture schools. All the schools are hurting. Students are conserving their money. They're working where they can. And to take that risk, it's a challenge. However, I think there's a lot of opportunity that we offer that could actually support them down the road in terms of having a skill set that's capable. The other challenge is encroachment, when we have other professions doing some of the same things with limited training. You can do a lot with a needle with limited training, but it's not the whole medicine. And so, there's some challenges and some confusion there, and a little bit of that affects the colleges as well. And yet, there are opportunities in what we're seeing. Western medicine systems break down in our state. Some of the state health care is not going to be funded. And who's going to take care of those people? How can we help? There's opportunities to step up if we kind of collaborate and get smart and figure out our approach on this. But for colleges we have to navigate this economy and be very careful, and we want to make sure the students understand that what they're getting from the medicine doesn't have to look fancy. They're going to get the medicine and become good practitioners, and there's plenty of people to treat who need this medicine. There's a lot of opportunity here, and we just need to keep the faith and keep going.
SS: You were talking about the healthcare situation in this country. Does acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine have a role in integrated care that we're not taking advantage of? Do we need to add on to the curriculum to fill that need?
TK: Well, I think that we certainly can. You know, even things like routine physicals, that the medical doctors do not have the time to fulfill the need. Are we able to do that? I think the answer to that is, we could. But we have to think about our education, and how we move forward is going to require us to make some really important decisions about who we are and what roles we want to fulfill, because our medicine is so vast. There really is not any way in which we could cover to any degree of success what the potential of what it is that we do across the scope of what we offer. So I think we have to look at [it] as a profession. Where do we want to be, and where are the jobs? And then what are the skills and abilities that are necessary for us to be excellent in those jobs. And then we're going to have to look at sacrifice, because right now we certainly can't add to the programs in terms of adding cost, adding hours. And so we look at what our limitations are in terms of accreditation, Department of Education requirements and whether we can make some tough decisions in what the entry level means right now. Our responsibilities from the college level is to create entry level practitioners. We have to start looking at that term entry level and ask ourselves if the definition has changed. If the definition has changed, then we have to be flexible and brave and courageous enough to make sure that we can adjust to what the new definition of that is. So, the question being what is our role in integrative medicine, I think our medicine bodes well in the collaborative care, integrative whole person wellness world because of the nature of how we practice and the nature of our diagnosis, the recognition of patho-mechanism within the treatment. And therefore, I think that we just need to decide if mental health, for example, if that's going to be the primary concern in the next 20 years. Then maybe that is something we need to emphasize more in our programs. And I agree with Catherine, the economics, particularly as the colleges are about enrollment--getting students in. But I think the other thing is really the unification of our profession. We are a profession that is many, many things, which is in some ways wonderful, but in other ways, difficult. Because we aren't a united voice, a united front. We have, in fact, sometimes very dissenting types of movements within our profession and that makes it difficult for us to move forward together. And so, I think that that remains a huge challenge. And I hope that anyone listening here, wherever you are, within the profession, or even outside the profession, one of the things that we have to get into our heads is that we need to stand together, and we need to move forward together. We have to make decisions together, and we have to sacrifice together. We have to look at, not from our own well-being, but for the well-being of our profession.
CN: I agree with Thomas. You can't accomplish very much if we're kind of spread out and across. We actually have to come together. Some of the other professions not only come together in a united front, but they put their money there, and so that helps them grow. But if we're looking at integrative, I have to say this one thing: integrative, versus integrated. I was talking to a Western healthcare educator, and when I [said], “I see you don't have much integrative medicine in your curriculum,” they [said], “well, we're integrated.” For them, integrated means all these other practitioners within their own medicine are together-- the different practitioners they teach that's integrated to them. I go, “Oh, but I mean integrative where you're bringing other medicines, perspectives into your training.” So that being said, the other thing you said, Thomas, about what we can do, a lot of it depends on the scope of practice in your state. And you can teach to that. If you can expand it to include additional Western medicine modalities, you become a little more useful to integrate with Western systems. But I'd like to propose something different that we all get behind. Western medicine has the MDs, the DOs, the PAs, the PTs, pharmacists and nutritionists and radiology, psychology and psychiatry, and all that stuff. We with Asian traditional medicine [can] come up with the same system that is integrated with all these other types of delivery points within our medicine. We can do this instead of just having the acupuncturist as the one role that's getting picked apart. [That] with some of the tools we have that we actually build and get behind building this medicine into its own medicine, because in Asia it is its own medicine, and we can have other Western medicine work for us if we have our own hospitals. If we have our own delivery care people to do nutrition, mental health, exercise, things like that. We can build a medicine that's broader and deeper, with many more roles that will carry its own weight. And now, with this ICD-11 codes by the World Health Organization, Asian medicine insurance codes, we really could get behind that. We're getting more support that way. It's not like we're going to be invited into Western medicine to come do this and that. And we've had our own role in our own schools. But why not create more of our own hospitals or outpatient clinics, mental health centers, restaurants that are based on the food. Bring in a little bit of Feng Shui to clean your house and different things that were the concepts of our medicine. The energetics are brought into other areas. Because, to me, that's what's missing. And that's what the unhealthy side of our healthcare system is because it's missing us. But whether or not they choose to work with us, we can't control that, but we can control our own destiny. Thomas, what we were talking about is to get behind and come together with a vision and start building. Come together and build a hospital. If we need to make it so, we have some Western medicine in case of, you know, emergencies and so forth. But we can control that scene and make it better. That's my vision.
TK: So, I have a quick story. A couple decades ago, the first week that I worked in in a hospital setting. I was going on rounds with the attending physician, and I asked, “What do you want from me? Why am I here? And what do you want me to do here?” What he said I’ll always remember. “Today,” he said, “I want you to give something to my patient that I can't.” And I think that what you just said, Catherine, in terms of developing our own resources, our own hospital is such a great idea, and just to add to your idea, I would say this--what we don't have in medicine right now is prevention. We have treatment of disease done very well by medical doctors, by acupuncturists, by rehabilitative things from PTs and so forth. But what we really don't have is prevention. We have a concept of preventative medicine. But, I always ask this question: do we know enough nutrition to be able to prescribe nutrition to prevent disease? My honest opinion? No. I want us to, but I don't think so. Do we know enough about exercise? Physiology and such that we can prescribe movement, and so forth to prevent disease? I don't know. I'm sure there are people [who] can, certainly within our colleges, but within medicine in general, I don't know that we have this way of educating our graduates such that we could actually make that shift. If medicine truly wants to go into prevention, who's going to be the one to practice it? And maybe that's where we can be pioneers in actual preventative medicine while maintaining the ability to treat disease.
CN: So we do that in our medicine. However, you're talking about, getting into Western medicine to pilot that type of support or practice because they can't do it, as you said, what the doctors can't give. We can give not only just the prevention, but also recovery, and quite frankly, longevity because [of] tonifying treatments and herbs. We can help the body stay toned all the way till it's done and we have that understanding that I don't think they have.
YL: Catherine, your vision is amazing.I think that what you've offered is a way to fight back against the encroachment that's happening by becoming standalone and bigger and specialized. What I'm hearing at the same time, though, is the economics of running a school[because that’s focused on getting] people through school in an affordable way, so that they can start practicing. The problem with that is that they're at a basic level, and that makes encroachment easy, versus if they got a lot of herbal training, for example, that a nurse practitioner can't do or PT can't do. That acupuncturists, as stronger herbalists, could have a more clear lane. There's the contradiction of trying to keep the schools affordable [when] you can't add hours that makes your vision harder to achieve, because there's not enough people who would get that further training to make a system like that.
CN: So part of it is you can't teach everything in the time that we have to get people licensed. There's postgraduate, right? There's all kinds of continuing education and continual growth. And every patient teaches you. So you're learning for 20 years. It's just a great profession, but I want to bring us back to branding, because what we brand ourselves as, people will believe. Of course, we have to deliver on that promise, but if we can brand ourselves in a way that we offer this, this and that, we're longevity, prevention, recovery.
I think we're already feeding a niche. so we have to brand ourselves differently as well.
TK: Catherine, let me ask you, with your background as a lawyer, in terms of the issue of encroachment, because we have both been a part of a discussion [before]. How we are legally defined as acupuncture, because encroachment, to great degree, is somewhat out of our control, right? And part of it is whether or not another profession is deemed by people who are outside of the profession as qualified to be able to practice acupuncture. And I don't know if you remember the conversation about the specific terms that are absent in the definition of acupuncture. I think the word was incision?
CN: Prescribing. You need to get that word in your scope.
TK: And incision, because incision suggests surgery, right? Without that specific term, we weren't considered surgical, therefore it was much easier to deem a non-invasive practice as being qualified to steal acupuncture as long as they just changed the name.
CN: Because incisions is in our scope [although] it needs to be more clearly in our scope, just like prescribing and herbs and things like that.
It just depends on each state's definition and scope. And I will tell you this. I've seen professions come into our state. And they say. “because it's being done in other states, this justifies us. And even though we didn't learn in school, we're learning it now in our continuing education. So this justifies us expanding our scope to include this and that.” And you know what? We can do the same thing. We can expand our scope through our continuing education training as well. Just say, “hey, the profession is doing this now. We deserve the right to do this because you are preventing me from making a living, if I can't do what I've been trained to do.” There's a whole approach to that. I'm happy to talk to anybody about how to use what we did in Arizona for other states, because I think that's important, and we can raise the level of this medicine to be broader and do other things and make us more competitive in the marketplace.
TK: Yeah, Arizona recently added acupuncture injection therapy into your scope, and I know my state, New Jersey, it's off the table right now. So, there's a lot of movement around the country based on the work that Florida historically has, and what you guys have done recently.
CN: I see some activity in other states. There's enough time in history to show that people who aren't fully trained in acupuncture who are needling are hurting [people]. There's enough evidence to create some limits and barriers as to what they can do with that. Again, training is everything. We can use that to help grow our medicine and protect it a little bit, and protect the consumer.
TK: You know our profession is one that for decades now has taken the stance of defense. We've been defending and reacting. And I think that we are now in a place where maybe we can go on the offensive. Catherine, in terms of scope expansion, I look at it more as an acknowledgment, because our scope already has this. We just haven't explicitly stated that we're going to do this, or we haven't created the specific training outlines and competencies for these things. It's really more about acknowledging what is already there that we aren't taking advantage of as you mentioned. And I think that for example, spinal manipulation is in 20, and that's where Dr. Palmer took it from, which is chiropractic. Now, obviously the practice of chiropractic is not, but spinal adjustment is within our scope of practice. It is something that I learned years ago. Obviously for legal reasons, I'm hesitant to practice. But I think if it is something that we are interested in in doing, not high velocity stuff, but certainly based on the same principles, with the validity of chiropractic, it brings the validity of what we have, as well as our medicine. So, there's a lot of areas that we could also move into based on what is historically part of our canon.
CN: Offensive doesn't have to mean versus defensive. It can be essentially creating or co-creating. I would love to see a chiropractic school that blends with Tui-na--that brings in the original principles and blends it together. The Council of Colleges, we need to come together more frequently and just work together as a team to problem solve. Because if everybody succeeds, we all succeed, and the fewer we have in the system. I've seen that in other professions, where they grew smaller and smaller to fewer schools. They get a little more money then to operate and do more stuff that way. But there's no reason why we can't somehow collaborate and survive longer as a result.
YL: How many schools are there right now? Such prominent ones have shut down.
TK: Right now we still have 36. Am I right? 36?
CN: Where there were 60. There's more than in the Council right now.
TK: Oh, I'm thinking of who's in the Council. So, there are a couple more. We're hovering around 40. There are a few programs that are pre accreditation. They will be fully accredited schools, but we're in the vicinity of 40 accredited institutions right now. Eleven institutions have closed since Covid.
I know that both people within the profession, and people outside of the profession have taken note of that and have thought many different things with that.
Optically, it may suggest certain things that are not necessarily reality. The world went through a tremendous trauma in the last 5 years, and its ramifications and its consequences are complicated. [We can’t] ignore its effects on, not just acupuncture schools, but all schools. All types colleges have all felt the…
CN: The tightening?
TK: You know, people reevaluating education. There's a movement now kind of looking at, “Why do I need that, anyway?” We're just looking at the fact that trade schools now are becoming more and more viable options for many people.
CN: Programs that are shorter versus long term. But you know what, Thomas, what doesn't kill us can make us stronger.
We learned a lot from [Covid], and there's going to probably be some other illness or pandemic, and we can step up. I remember when AIDs came out and we looked at that and [went], “Oh, that's just this pattern or this pattern and this pattern together all at once”, [and] you begin to treat that. And so when we look at whatever comes down the pike and the energetics of it, I think we'll find a way to immediately start working on it and be prepared and help people.
SS: Do you think that we have a problem, or we suffer because herbs are considered dietary supplements? We're restrained in the way that as a company we can talk about them. It just seems like that's an issue that needs to get addressed, because when you mentioned the pandemic, you know there were herbal resources that might have been very valuable, but one of the primary herbs was not allowed to be sold in the United States. And because it's a dietary supplement, they can't be said to treat, mitigate, diagnose disease. Is there some way of getting rid of this constraint?
CN: There [are] some ways around this. We had Senate hearings in Arizona about this. If we use our energetics, we could talk about things in terms of energetics. There's a way to approach getting our medicine out there without making a medical claim. We've used that for a while to stay small, but to be able to practice our medicine. If we say we're not treating a disease, we're bringing you back into balance, we're trying to find the yin, we're draining the damp, we're detoxifying something. But the thing I want to say when we're talking about herbs again with the scope of practice, it behooves us to get prescribing rights and herbs in there because many of these herbs are being put into pharmaceutical drugs and could be taken away from us on some level. Because if it's a drug we can't use it anymore. I'm very protective of this, and I feel like we need to get on the same page around this, so we can protect our access to these herbs. But in the meantime, we can talk about it differently a little bit. And again, the scope helps determine a lot of that.
TK: Yeah, I would agree. I think herbal medicine has a lot more challenges than acupuncture does, because it is in the same world as vitamin supplements, and then also big pharma, right? And so, you have a lot of powerful industries while we are very small, essentially insignificant. But as soon as you threaten any kind of market share, what we're afraid of is growing too fast, too soon and not being able to [protect it]. Because if you are subsumed, if you are blocked, you're probably not going to be able to overcome that. And so I think one of the big obstacles that we have is to have a bigger presence in the evidence and research of herbal medicine in the way that we practice, not looking at isolates and things like this, but looking at the practice of Chinese herbalism, and how effective that [is]. Because otherwise you're proving how we can convert Chinese herbalism into synthetic pharmaceutical isolates to be able to practice outside of our medicine. And so essentially, once you do that, then the question becomes, is there a need for Chinese herbal medicine if they co-opt it? The difficult part is having the evidence and research of efficacy in the way that we practice, and then our medicine can be pushed forward. That's not insurmountable, but certainly difficult. Because where do you get the funding?
CN: This is very valid. Well, I'll just say this. This is where education and knowledge makes the difference, because if you know how to use these things and understand the impact, you should be prescribing, or they should be consulting to do this. The other level is educating the consumer, the public enough so they have an idea of how to know what to use. And the energetics, given some basic understanding of why that's important. Not only will a portion of them go on to become students at our schools, but they're pushing the market interest and will also protect and fight for these things that they feel are important.
SS: I have spent a lot of time looking on Google Scholar in terms of traditional herbal medicine and I find there's a tremendous amount of research being done, especially in Asia with Chinese herbs, and what they describe is not just the energetics, but they describe what happens using these herbs on a tissue level or organ level or cellular level, the biochemical pathways that are being exploited by the herbs. I think that there is a way of taking this in as a part of our medicine as well that could [help it] gain some legitimacy.
TK: Yeah, I think you know the validation studies. And I think these are really important, because ultimately it comes down to public trust. You have a medicine that is foreign. China is not the most trusted country right now. Therefore, you have a bit of an optics issue, but in the same token, we have to be really careful about drifting too far away from the theories of our medicine, such that we can continue to validate without becoming something else, without having to utilize a different framework in order to practice. And I don't think we're there yet, but I do worry about that, because if we're not the ones asking the questions, right? Because who has the money? And if we can be the ones asking the questions, I think it is a lot safer for herbal medicine to remain viable to the Chinese herbalist rather than ultimately to the pharmaceutical company. But it comes down to research [as] basically the avenue via which we can figure out how to make some money. That wouldn't really be our interest, I think at this time it's about more of an introduction [and] validation of a system, and the introduction to the combination of medicinals that are not as well-known and understood in scientific methodology or mechanism of action. That kind of translation is important. But I worry about drifting too far away before we even get to the port. Very hard to come back, but I am also not anti-evidence or anything like that. I think it's absolutely necessary. And I'm so grateful to see these things being done. Most of these studies will have to be redone here but the fact that they are coming out of China, Korea, Japan, I think is very, very encouraging for herbal medicine. Again, if we could take those studies and reproduce them here, I think that that would be a real great thing for our medicine.
CN: I think we need to do both. I think we need to validate that medicine here in the United States. We need to talk to the consumer, the patient level, and some of those will grow to be practitioners. Once they get that understanding of the medicine, they won't be afraid. They'll embrace it. Because we can Americanize anything to make it more palatable for our consumers and make it ours. And why not? We blended enough stuff before. A blend of immigrants, anyhow. So, why not Americanized acupuncture?
TK: You know it's interesting, Catherine. I hear what you're saying. And I wonder because we kind of are half and half in, we're kind of not sure. Should we? Should we kind of not say or should we? Should we take advantage of the fact that there is some fetishism[of] the Asian?
CN: We can do both. Let's take advantage of that and do that. When there's chaos and these little bouncing balls inside, that's the time where we can insert ourselves and make a change, because what we think, we attract. And if we want to be successful or go a certain way. chaos is the best time to help guide the energetic balls in the direction that we want to go. So, if we can envision a future that really takes our medicine to the next level and it becomes more broad, it's more useful, and [promotes] health and prosperity, and happiness.
Participant Bios
Catherine Niemiec, JD, L.Ac.
Catherine Niemiec obtained her juris doctorate in law from University of California-Hastings after receiving her undergraduate training at University of Arizona. While working as a litigator and later as director of a national bar review company in the San Francisco Bay area, Catherine was introduced to Acupuncture Medicine to address repeated bouts of bronchitis. After a Chinese herbal tea cleared her symptoms within minutes, she was inspired to study the medicine. Returning home to Arizona, she helped establish the Acupuncture Board of Examiners and the first medical school of Acupuncture in Arizona. The Phoenix Institute of Herbal Medicine & Acupuncture (PIHMA) is now in its 29th year offering 4-year Masters and Doctorate degrees in Acupuncture and in Herbal Medicine. Catherine has also served on several boards and commissions, including serving as:
- Chair, Commissioner and Site Visit Chair for ACAOM
- Vice-President of the Council of Colleges of Acupuncture & Herbal Medicine where she still serves on the Board
- President and Board member of the Arizona acupuncture associations over the years
Thomas Kouo, DAOM, L.Ac., Dipl.OM
Dr. Kouo currently serves as the Institutional Vice-President for Academic Affairs and New Jersey Campus Director for the Virginia University of Integrative Medicine (VUIM). He is a former Academic Dean at both VUIM and the Eastern School of Acupuncture and Traditional Medicine. He is a sought-after lecturer on many topics in acupuncture / herbal medicine, and teaches in several Doctoral programs around the country. He has served as a long-time accreditation site visitor for ACAHM. He has just completed editing and writing the forward and afterward for Giovanni Maciocia's The Psyche of Chinese Medicine, 2nd Edition with a planned release date in early 2026.
Thomas is the current President of the Council of Colleges for Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine (CCAHM) and former Vice-President representing the Council on the AHM Coalition, the AIHM, IHS, and the SAR. He is a past chair of the CCAHM Herb Committee and currently serves as the co-chair for the Academics Committee. He was able to participate in many national initiatives including the latest NCCAOM Job Task Analysis and task force for the BLS Acupuncture Designation review.
While serving as Academic Dean and Chair of the Herbology Department at the Virginia University of Integrative Medicine (VUIM), Dr. Kouo has led the university through the ACAHM initial accreditation process in March 2015 and the institution was awarded the maximum years of initial accreditation. Prior to VUIM, Dr. Kouo served as Herbal Department Chair for Pacific College of Health Sciences in San Diego. He taught in both the Master's and Doctoral programs while also serving as a Clinical Supervisor. A graduate of the Master's and Advanced Practice Doctoral programs (DAOM) at Pacific College, Dr. Kouo has practiced Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine in California, Virginia, and New Jersey.
Skye Sturgeon, DAOM
Skye Sturgeon, DAOM is the Quality Assurance Manager and Special Consultant for Mayway, USA. Skye was the former Chair of Acupuncture & East Asian Medicine and core faculty member at Bastyr University, core faculty member and Faculty Council Chair at the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and President and Senior Professor of the Acupuncture & Integrative Medicine College, Berkeley. Before making Chinese medicine his career choice, Skye held various positions in the Natural Foods Industry for 12 years and prior to that was a clinical biochemist and toxicologist.
Yvonne Lau, Mayway Herbs President
Yvonne Lau has been the President of Mayway Herbs since 1997 and has worked in the family Chinese herb business since childhood. She first visited China in 1982, and still travels there annually for business and pleasure. She has had the good fortune and honor to work with many people both in China and the US who are passionate about Chinese Medicine and about herb quality.
Yvonne has also been active as the Vice President of the Chinese Herb Trade Association of America since 1998, a trade group founded in 1984 representing over 300 Chinese herb importers, distributors, and retailers primarily in California.
She chairs the Regulatory Compliance Committee for the Association, and in this role has lectured about Good Manufacturing Practices and best business practices, as well as organized and moderated meetings between regulatory agencies and the Association.