I suppose, as in any profession, there are outstanding acupuncturists and there are mediocre ones. I have committed my life to providing every tool i can think of to teach Master Tung’s Magic Points, an extraordinary ancient Taoist system of acupuncture, that will pretty much guarantee that you will have an outstanding practice and a bursting toolbox to treat just about anything that comes your way, with TCM. With 34 years of clinical practice and a brand new 565 page book, called, “Master Tung’s Magic Points: A Definitive Clinical Guide,” you’ll have enough to keep you busy for the next ten years, easily, and to build a very successful practice for yourself and your patients who need YOU.

My original teacher of this style of acupuncture was Dr. Miriam Lee, OMD., one of the first licensed acupuncturists in the state of California. In 1987, she and i travelled to HeFei, China, to study bleeding techniques with a third generation bleeder, the late Dr. Wang Xiu Zhen. It was life-changing, for sure. That same year, Dr. Lee introduced me to Dr. Young Wei-Chieh, who was a direct disciple of Master Tung Ching Chang, and who has been my primary teacher of this system, ever since. Dr. Young is still teaching and writing but has now closed his practice in Southern California.

Straight out of ACTCM, 1984, in San Francisco, i opened my first acupuncture practice in the Upper Haight/Ashbury district of San Francisco, in 1985. I specialized in the treatment of HIV/AIDS (at that time) and taught myself how to treat all kinds of common ailments and rare opportunistic diseases, things like Candida, Pneumocystis pneumonia, the side-effects of radiation and chemotherapy, Karposi’s Sarcoma, ITP, just to name a few. It was eye-opening for a young 25 year old and heart breaking to work so hard and watch 25 year olds die. I truly learned some extraordinary things, working on all of the AIDS wards in all of the major hospitals in San Francisco, but perhaps the most impactful was that when you die is not nearly as important as how you live!!!

In 1988, after nearly five years of intense stress and mind-blowing results with Traditional Chinese Medicine, i moved my practice to Santa Cruz, where I’d been living in the mountains, since 1979, and have practiced there ever since. Many of my HIV patients travelled to see me there, and some are still alive today.