Our Philosophy
Since 2007 we have been passionately dedicated to benefiting our community with optimal health and wellness by providing our patients with high quality holistic health care through acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, food therapy, and traditional health cultivation techniques . We guide and educate our patients to make informed choices about their health and well-being, thus empowering them to lead, happy, healthy and balanced lives.
Our clinical philosophy has been greatly shaped by the masters of Chinese Medicine. One of the great physicians within Chinese Medicine’s long history was Sun Simiao, 581 AD- 682 AD. He was a physician, philosopher, and educator. He wrote extensively on the ‘role of the great physician’. It is his words that have guided our clinical philosophy and approach to preserving this amazing medicine.
Whenever a physician treats an illness, he must quiet his spirit and settle his will, he must be free of wants and desires, and he must first develop a heart full of great compassion and empathy. He must pledge to devote himself completely to relieving the suffering of all sentient beings. If patients suffering from disease come to him seeking help, he may not inquire whether they are nobility or low class or poor or wealthy, [or consider their] old age or youth, beauty or ugliness, or whether he detests or likes them or whether they are his friend, whether they are Chinese or barbarian, a fool or a sage. He must treat all of them exactly the same as if they were his closest relative. Neither must he “look to the front while turning around to cover his back”, worry about his personal fortune or misfortune, and guard and cherish his own life. When seeing the suffering and grief of others, he must act as if it were his own and open his heart deeply to their misery. He must not avoid dangerous mountains with rugged cliffs, any time of day or night, the cold of winter or heat of summer, hunger or thirst, fatigue and exhaustion. He must singlemindedly attend to their rescue without thinking of efforts or appearances. Acting like this, he can serve as great physician for the masses; acting against this, he is a gigantic thief to all sentient beings.
-translation Sabine Wilms, Ph.D
Dr. J. Heaverlo DACM, L.Ac.
Dr. J. Heaverlo is an Iowa native that has been studying and practicing Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) since 2002. He underwent the graduate program of Traditional Chinese Medicine at the Academy of Chinese Culture and Health Sciences in Oakland, CA. After completing his Master’s Degree, he continued his education and received his Doctorate of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine (DACM) from Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, San Diego, CA. He has frequently traveled to Hangzhou, Beijing, and Shanghai, China to complete more advanced studies in the hospitals with senior practitioners of the medicine. In addition to his studies of Chinese Medicine, he has also studied the Chinese language since 2001. His studies of the language has greatly benefited a deeper understanding of the medicine by granting to access 3,000 years of medical writings.
Dr. Heaverlo has chosen Chinese Medicine because he found it to be the most complete, advanced, holistic form of health care available. It seeks to treat the underlying cause of disease and poor health, not just the symptoms, using food therapy, herbal medicine, acupuncture, qi gong, tai chi and health cultivation techniques.
Chinese medicine uses the concept of roots and branches. Instead of treating a variety of symptoms separately, it looks for a root cause. While some treatments might be used to relieve symptoms such as pain, Chinese medicine practitioners always seek to address the root cause. Once the root is treated, the branches will become healthier. This leads not only to treatment of current health problems, but also to prevention of disease and a better quality of life along the way.
The Doctorate of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine is a five-year professional graduate degree curriculum. It includes approximately more than 3300 hours of didactic training in Chinese and Western Medicine and 1000 plus hours of clinical training. Students receive training in the following key areas: TCM diagnosis and treatment which include Acupuncture and Chinese Herbology, Tai Ji and Qi Gong, nutrition, and Western medicine including diagnosis and pharmacology.
To become a Licensed Acupuncturist (L.Ac.) minimum requirements are completion of a four-year TCM graduate program with an accredited college of Oriental Medicine and completion of national board exams with the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine.
