How does a profession begin? Not on paper. Not with licensing boards or schools. Often enough, it starts with a handful of curious people who become convinced there’s another way to do things. Part determination, part serendipity, and perhaps a good measure of luck.
Bill Prensky and Gene Bruno were there before acupuncture had a place in American healthcare. In the wake of the Vietnam War, student protests, and a generation questioning nearly everything, they walked away from academic research that no longer made sense to them. Their Tai Chi teacher, Marshall Ho, introduced them to Dr. Kim, who reluctantly agreed to teach a small group that in time became like family.
What followed is equal parts history and improbable story: treating patients at the Crossroads of the World, translating across languages, creating lecture series just to afford tuition, traveling with their teacher, and helping establish the first legal and educational footholds for acupuncture.
Listen in to this conversation on trading graduate education for a study that didn’t have a syllabus, credentialing or degree, helped acupuncture to find its footing in America.
Intuitive medicine is the highest form of medicine. A physician needs to listen carefully to hear the inner connection they have with a patient.
—Gene Bruno
William Prensky, OMD, LAc
Dr. William Prensky was one of the pioneering figures responsible for helping establish acupuncture and Chinese medicine as recognized healthcare practices in the United States during the late 1960s and 1970s. As one of the earliest non-Asian practitioners to study Classical Chinese Medicine under renowned masters Dr. Gim Shek Ju and Dr. James Tin Yau So, Dr. Prensky played a central role in introducing acupuncture to Western medical institutions and the American public.
Working alongside fellow pioneers Steven Rosenblatt, Gene Bruno, John Ottaviano, and others through the Institute for Taoist Studies and the National Acupuncture Association, he helped develop some of the first acupuncture research programs and educational initiatives in the country.
Dr. Prensky also served as President of the National Acupuncture Association and helped support the establishment of the UCLA Acupuncture Pain Clinic and the New England School of Acupuncture, among the first major acupuncture institutions in the United States.
Gene Bruno, OMD, LAc, FABAA
Gene Bruno completed his undergraduate studies at UCLA. In 1972, Gene was one of the acupuncturists of the Veterinary Acupuncture Research Project of the National Acupuncture Association (NAA). This group, headed by John Ottaviano, introduced Animal Acupuncture into the United States for the first time. As a staff acupuncturist with the NAA he participated part time in the Acupuncture Pain Clinic at UCLA medical school from 1972 until 1974.
Dr. Bruno was a part of the group that founded the first two schools of Acupuncture in the United States, and the co-founder of the Oregon Acupuncture Association in 1978. He served on the Oregon Medical Board’s Acupuncture Committee from 1980 until 1989. He is the past president of the AAOM. From 2007 until 2011, he was a member of the Executive Counsel of the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies, In 2007 he founded the Trudy McAlister Foundation, a charitable, scholarship foundation for AOM students. In addition to the extensive research on developing animal acupuncture, Dr. Bruno was an acupuncturist in research projects at Harvard Medical School and at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, looking into the practical applications of acupuncture for the treatment of pain.
Dr. Bruno is the lead instructor at the National Academy of Animal Acupuncture, and has recently published two books, Acupuncture Points on the Horse and Acupuncture Points on the Dog, that are available on Amazon.com
Interested in animal acupuncture?
Gene has two books: Acupuncture Points on the Horse, and Acupuncture Points on the Dog.
The Animal Acupuncture Board and National Academy of Animal Acupuncture are both sources for more about animal acupuncture.
The Trudy McAlister Foundation offers scholarships and support to students of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine.
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