What makes a system feel trustworthy—results, lineage, or the way it brings you into the resonance of what’s happening?
Philip Suger didn’t start with Saam acupuncture. He was in Beijing in 2010, following a thread that led him to Wang Ju-Yi and channel palpation—hands on the body, feeling where things change and where they resolve. Later, back in the States, he found himself working with patients who improved but those changes were not lasting. That got him began circling back to a method he’d once dismissed: four needles, arranged through a set of relationships rather than point functions. It didn’t make a lot of sense. But people were reporting results.
After some study with Toby Daly he got more curious, and that sent him searching for information in Chinese.
Michael Brown, has a keen interest in tracking down old texts and translating them for the world English speaking acupuncturists. Together, they have spent the past few years working on a translation of a book that traces the history of Saam, some of the luminary practitioners along the way, and the way these pre-modern doctors used the Four-Needles.
There’s been more than a little development of the Saam method since that legendary monk had his cultivated insights into medicine. One thing for sure, four needles with the right diagnosis, it can make a big difference for our patients.
Acupuncture is very much a palpatory medicine. Trust the channels, trust your hands. — Philip
Philip Suger, Ph.D, L.Ac
Dr. Suger earned his Bachelor’s degree at Penn State where he majored in Neuroscience and minored in Mandarin Chinese while being a Division 1 athlete.
After graduating, he went off to China to begin studying Chinese medicine at the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine. Two years later he returned to the U.S. to complete his master’s degree at the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine and immediately afterward, returned to China to pursue his doctoral degree at the Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine. During these twelve years of higher education, Dr. Suger was under the tutelage of world-class practitioners.
After completing his studies, he moved to Houston, Texas to start practicing Chinese medicine. There he saw patients in a busy medical center clinic and at the same time taught students at the American College of Acupuncture Oriental Medicine. During this time, he published many papers in related scientific journals and helped co-translate one medical text. After several years of living in Texas he took the opportunity to move his family to the California Bay Area. There he practiced in cancer clinics as well as urgent care centers all the while being a professor at the Acupuncture and Integrative Medicine College and the Academy of Chinese Culture and Health Sciences.
Dr. Suger has now finally returned to the Northeast to be of service to the patients of SOPHIA Natural Health Center and the surrounding community!
Michael Brown
Michael Brown is a scholar-practitioner of Chinese medicine and founder of the Academy of Source-Based Medicine. His work focuses on classical medical literature, theoretical traditions, and incorporating famous acupuncturists, both ancient and modern, into clinical practice. He has also published and edited several translations with Purple Cloud Press, most recently the Systematic Differentiation of Warm Diseases.
Preorder your copy of The Essentials of Saam Acupuncture.
Visit the Saam group on Facebook hosted by Philip.
Michael Brown has some CEU classes on the classics.
Here is a short excerpt from the book about a treatment that involves draining the Gallbladder.
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