by Eric Brand, L.Ac.

Recently, I’ve been hearing some conversations between friends about schools and endowments in Chinese medicine, and it made me think that I should really blog about the inspiring potential that increased resources can bring to Chinese medical education.

I recently had the pleasure to do a few guest lectures at the New York Chiropractic College (NYCC) in upstate New York. I have visited many Chinese medicine schools across the U.S., and I’ve never been more impressed with the resources that NYCC has available. While NYCC is primarily a chiropractic school, they have a Chinese medicine program that benefits from the nicest facilities that I’ve ever seen in a Western TCM school. Despite the fact that they only have 100 TCM students and a correspondingly modest number of Chinese medicine faculty members, they are fortunate to have some of the country’s finest teachers and academic resources that would make most other TCM schools turn green with envy.

The thing that makes NYCC so special is their non-profit structure and wealth of endowments. Unlike most U.S. Chinese medicine schools that can fit into urban office space, NYCC boasts a 300 acre campus, making it feel more like a proper college than a trade school. They have a $70,000 Chinese medicinal herb garden that was designed by Jason Wright, one of the outstanding herbalists on their faculty. This garden is a beautiful ba gua-shaped landscape, a true artistic masterpiece that allows students to see hundreds of growing medicinal plants that were lovingly planted by Jason. Looking across the campus, one cannot help but notice that they have a proper library and anatomy lab, not just a room of books but a stand-alone building like one sees in a Chinese TCM university or a normal mainstream U.S. university. Bookworm heaven!

I found it truly inspiring to see a Chinese medicine school in the U.S. that is backed by $30 million in endowments; it is astounding how much potential is opened up when a school is funded by endowments instead of simple tuition funds. Furthermore, the non-profit nature of NYCC allows them to funnel all of the tuition funds back into the faculty and facilities. Consequently, they have real, full-time faculty with offices and proper salaries, which is a rarity in most U.S. acupuncture schools. This allows them to retain some of the finest faculty in the country, which is a far more valuable asset than the 300 acres, nice clinical settings and beautiful classrooms.

Chief among these outstanding faculty members are Marnae Ergil and Kevin Ergil, two of the best Chinese medicine instructors in the nation. It was an honor to teach to Kevin’s class, because Kevin is really one of the greatest Western minds in Chinese medicine. Kevin Ergil is not a household name like some of the celebrity authors that dominate the state board reading list, but in reality he is far more knowledgeable and heavyweight than virtually any of the celebrities. Marnae is also one of the top minds in our field; she is a fantastic translator, experienced clinician, and all-around great practitioner. In addition, there is the aforementioned Jason Wright, who is a very knowledgeable herbalist and a wizard in the pharmacy and the garden. Jason gave me some incredibly pure gold moxa that he had casually whipped up from simple Spring Wind crude ai ye, along with some homemade burn cream and other little treats that his students make in their herbal medicine processing class. I’d love to sit in for a semester in his class, and I wish that some of my former students could spend more time studying with some of these great folks (and their additional colleagues on the faculty).

In addition to the faculty and the campus, I was very impressed by the hospitality of the school. They unveiled a student appreciation party for the day of my lecture, and had great food, a huge room full of attentive students to attend the lecture, and fantastic faculty support. The president and the dean both attended the entire lecture on EBM trends in TCM, and there was a fantastic faculty turnout. I’ve never experienced such hospitality and organization at any of the other school lectures that I’ve delivered in the U.S. The whole experience was akin to the type of hospitality that I’ve experienced when lecturing at Chinese medicine universities in Taiwan and China, which is a far cry from the average U.S. acupuncture school where one is lucky to get a posting on a bulletin board and an empty room to lecture in.

Anyway, I’ll cut the praises short for the sake of brevity, but I couldn’t help but blog about the experience. It was truly inspirational to see the potential that can be achieved as our profession grows and enters into more mainstream academic environments. The presence of endowments instead of simple tuition revenues opens many doors, and it is fantastic to see that the future of our field will take us beyond the little office parks that most of us are currently trained in. I cannot imagine how many new doors would open for practitioners if more of our schools had endowments and all the resources that endowments can bring. It is truly a whole new world.

Copyright Blue Poppy Ent., Inc. 2009. All rights reserved.