What if the very things that seem to be pulling our profession apart are actually the forces that will finally condense it into something more resilient? We’re in a moment of choppy waters—school closures, shrinking enrollment, and a shifting financial landscape—where the successes of what have brought us to this moment will not take us into the future. .
In this conversation with Kathleen Lumiere, co-president of the Seattle Institute for East Asian Medicine (SIEAM), we discuss how we might make changes to our educational models that both streamlines and strengthens East Asian medicine.
We discuss the integration of business education into clinical training, the disappearance of Grad Plus loans, and the effect that has had on a system that came to be dependent on them. Kathleen also introduces the idea of using the “wisdom of crowds” to define the irreducible core of our profession—a shared set of competencies that could protect our identity while opening new doors for collaboration.
Listen in to this conversation about what it means to be adventuresome and iconoclastic in a moment of crisis. It’s a look at how we can protect our infrastructure while remaining flexible enough to evolve, ensuring that the next
The demand for the medicine is growing, but our workforce is shrinking; in order for people to want to do this, they have to be able to make a sustainable living doing it.
Kathleen Lumiere, DAOM, L.Ac
Kathleen Lumiere earned her Master’s in Acupuncture with a certificate in Chinese Herbal Medicine from the Northwest Institute for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (2000) and her Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine degree from Bastyr University (2008) with a specialization in TCM Oncology. She served as Professor of Acupuncture and East Asian Medicine at Bastyr University for over 15 years, training future practitioners while maintaining active clinical practice.
Dr. Lumiere helped to establish integrative care at major medical centers including Harborview Medical Center’s Acute Pain Service. She is the founding editor of Convergent Points, a peer-reviewed case report journal, and has published extensively on acupuncture’s clinical effectiveness. At SIEAM she now serves as Co-President and faculty, providing clinical supervision and teaching on topics such as practice-based research and the science of how acupuncture works.
One School’s Model—SIEAM’s Answer to Acupuncture Training
Open Letter to Acupuncture Community May 2026
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