John Weeks

EBA Symposium 2018 - Day 1

Understanding the context of modern healthcare is crucial for operating successfully in modern medicine. The current healthcare climate is creating vast opportunities for the acupuncture profession to play a leading role in improving public health. In order to make the largest positive impact, participants will learn the key forces at play to skillfully navigate the modern healthcare landscape in order to confidently offer and expand their reach.

EBA Symposium - Day 1 Lectures:

Acupuncture and the Evolution of Consciousness: Understanding the Modern Scientific Landscape to Improve Healthcare through Better Access to Acupuncture

Mel Hopper Koppelman, DAc, MSc, MSc

We live in exciting times with unprecedented levels of opportunity for connection and access to information. Presently, acupuncture is enjoying increasing popularity as more and more patients choose to access it and an increasing number of mainstream institutions offer acupuncture and recommend it. However, the acupuncture profession also faces a number of challenges. On the one hand, energetic critics attempt to convince those who will listen that it doesn’t work while those outside of our profession are adding it to their own practices, sometimes with minimal training. How can we make sense of this landscape? How can we understand these threats and opportunities in a way that allows us to effectively forge a more positive future for public health?

In this talk, we will zoom right on out and start with a very high level overview of the evolution of thought, why different ways of thinking flourish in different times and how we can understand our profession’s way of thinking about healthcare in the context of modern medical science. We will then look at how best to communicate with different individuals and institutions with various types of thinking in order to improve public health and save lives by improving access to acupuncture.

Learning Objectives:    

1. Learn about Spiral Dynamics, a model of the evolution of consciousness, and where acupuncture and scientific research fits into this model
2. Learn about Integral Theory, its relationship to Daoism, and why Chinese Medicine and Biomedical science view health and medicine differently
3. Learn to use these models to understand how to more effectively communicate with individuals and institutions at different places on the Spiral of consciousness and development for better healthcare outcomes

Authentic Acupuncturation - lessons from the historicity of acupuncture practice in the occident

Dr. Lara McClure Ph.D

This is a ‘long view’ of attitudes to Acupuncture. We will explore the import of Acupuncture treatment as a curiosity in 19^th c. occidental settings, with particular focus on Churchill’s Treatise on Acupuncturation. We will consider how such documents compare with scientific research published in the 21^st c. as trusted sources of evidence and the differences and similarities in the acceptability, scientific and social, of Acupuncture in the two time frames. We will suggest that Acupuncture met the prevailing standards of occidental societies in the 1820s as measured by the personal testimony of the eminent, and contrast how this acceptability is found in the 21^st c. by means of the tenets of Evidence-Based Medicine. 

Learning Objectives:

1. To meet Churchill’s Treatise on Acupuncturation and other early-19^th texts in their original form and historical context
2. To contrast this 19^th evidence with examples of scientific research into Acupuncture published in the 21^stc.
3. To explore the texture of contemporary attitudes to Acupuncture in both settings
4. To appreciate this juxtaposition as a source of motivation and inspiration for practitioners of Acupuncture

Weaving Evidence and Activism: Lessons from the Popular Movement for Integrative Healthcare

John Weeks

The rise of integrative health and medicine is typically presented as a popular, grassroots movement. The January 1993 NEJM publication that propelled the “alternative” and “complementary” toward an “integrative” dialogue between the dominant school and the insurgent products, practices and practitioners was a citizen survey rather than a systematic review of RCTs. Still, forms of scientific evidence had already profoundly shaped the consumer movement while in the shadows, non-recognized, in the “alternative medicine” era. Ground work in the science shaping present policy making relative to mindfulness, multi-modality and non-pharmacological practices was already being laid. And evidence of biomedicine’s glaring gaps was fueling the ardor of the advocates for alternatives. This North America-focused presentation presents 5 Eras in the emergence of the field, highlighting the peculiar interplay of scientific, popular and professional action across multiple stakeholders as the movement advanced. The presentation closes with a look at lessons. When did evidence alone make a difference? When was it evidence plus advocacy? When did evidence merely rationalize directions propelled by other factors? How are evidence and activism interwoven toward expanded access?

Learning Objectives

Following this presentation the learners will be able to:

1. Describe parallel advances of professional formation and new integrative health research.
2. Explain the conflicting interests and interpretations of the Congressional mandate that created the NIH National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.
3. Present examples of activism by scientists that potentized their work as instruments for policy change.

What can the pharmaceutical industry can teach us about promoting health through acupuncture?

Dr. Gil Barzilay Ph.D Dipl.CM (I.A.TCM, ETCMA)

We live in a Western society where the large food and pharmaceutical industry essentially dictate what we consume and how we treat/are being treated for diseases. Pharmaceutical companies have been using various methods to increase awareness to diseases and drugs and create demand for their drugs. These include:

• Direct & Indirect Physician Training
• Direct to consumer (patients and families) education
• Lobbying to Stakeholders, including insurance companies, governing associations, lawmakers etc)

In fact, in 2013 pharma companies spent an estimated $27 Billion USD on marketing in the US only. These include investment in face-to-face detailing, educational & promotional meetings, Continuing Medical Education (CME), mailings, public relations including journal, web and direct-to-consumer ads via social media, awareness campaigns (World “X” Disease Day), grants to Health Advocacy Organizations (HAO) and others.

So what can we learn from this? Acupuncturists tend to be purists, more ethical and less at ease with the word “marketing”. To that we should add the limited budgets. However, existing in a Western society means that to create awareness about the wonders of our profession, we find it helpful to understand the strategies employed by pharmaceutical companies and ethically use these to our advantage.

In this lecture we will be looking at some of the key strategies and tactics, how some of the relevant ones can be adopted to our needs and what we should develop, both as individuals and organizations, to create more positive awareness of our profession and to improve public health through helping acupuncture be a first line treatment where appropriate.

Learning Objectives:

1. Learn how other healthcare industries promote awareness, access and demand for their products
2. Understand what we can learn to advance our profession into first line usage, where appropriate
3. Receive examples and take-home tips

EBA Symposium 2018 - Day 2

Let’s Get Serious – strategies for winning our place in modern healthcare

Charles Buck

The aim of this session is to foster more coherent communication of our brand and to facilitate wider acceptance of professional acupuncture and Chinese medicine. On completion, participants will have gained insight into the cognitive aspects that underlie acceptance of a nascent profession, aspects that lie beyond current definitions of “evidence”. These include issues such as cognitive biases, understanding of belief change as well as evaluation and communication of our traditional explanatory models. 

Learning Objectives:

1. why the issues are important for the survival of the tradition
2. How can we justify traditional explanatory models in a world of biomedicine?
3. Understanding the cognitive biases that inhibit our progress
4. Understanding belief change and the role of clinicians in facilitating this
5. Pro-active branding - Brand Us vs Brand ‘acupuncture’/CHM and the need for coherence and credibility

The Unfolding of the Vessel:  Evolutionary Biology Perspectives on Human Growth and Development and the Blending of the Eastern and Western Systems.

David W. Miller, MD, LAc

Evolutionary Biology presents a phenomenal lens through which to understand the Chinese physiologic systems.  While many concepts in Chinese theory appear to be esoteric and ungrounded in juxtaposition to current understandings of human physiology, shifting our focus to consider the systems in the evolutionary paradigm corrects this.  The Chinese channel system and its basis in somatotopic mapping are well rooted in neurology, and this talk will frame the Chinese system in a way that allows the classic theory to blend with modern understandings.  Our journey from single cell to fully formed adult is structured and predictable, and this talk will argue that the Chinese physiologic systems are invaluable in describing the complex structures that pass from generation to generation.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the key neurologic concepts that form the basis for somatotopic mapping
• Correlate the Chinese channel systems with concepts of somatotopic mapping
• Recognize the evolutionary persistence of systems presented
• Frame the Chinese systems in relation to Western neurologic concepts
• Appreciate the significance of posture as related to emotion and cognition

The Efficacy or Effectiveness of Acupuncture: Which Lens Offers Clarity?

Lee Hullender Rubin, DAOM, LAc, FABORM

When researchers set out to design a trial and compare acupuncture with a “sham or placebo” needle, very often the trial results in no difference between groups. When acupuncture is compared to usual care or another treatment like physical therapy, for example, we may see acupuncture doing as well as or better than the comparative treatment. Why is this? In this interactive lecture, we will unpack the importance of the control arm and why the question of efficacy versus effectiveness is so important in understanding evidence-based acupuncture.

Learning Objectives:

1. Define how the research question frames a research trial from the outset
2. Define and describe the sham paradox
3. Compare and contrast efficacy versus effectiveness

Telomeres and your Jing: Secrets to Restoring Health, Fertility and Longevity

Katherine Anderson L.Ac, FABORM

Scientists have long known that telomeres influence our aging, but it wasn’t until the recent past that they came to understand why and how they can be activated. This lecture will explore the science behind how telomeres affect general health, fertility and aging and how we can influence that both positively and negatively. We will examine how acupuncture can be used to help regulate telomere activity and thereby increase one’s lifespan and overall health.

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand the science behind telomeres and their relationship to health, aging and reproduction.
2. Understand the connection between telomeres and Yang Sheng
3. Acquire knowledge about regulating telomeres to increase longevity and reproductive capacity with epigenetics and the power of Chinese medicine
4. Integrate evidence-based practices into your clinic and your life to deliver better patient care and empower patients to improve their health