Health & FitnessAlternative HealthScienceLife SciencesNatural Sciences

Qiological Podcast

Michael Max

Acupuncture and East Asian medicine was not developed in a laboratory. It does not advance through double-blind controlled studies, nor does it respond well to petri dish experimentation. Our medicine did not come from the statistical regression of randomized cohorts, but from the observation and treatment of individuals in their particular environment. It grows out of an embodied sense of understanding how life moves, unfolds, develops and declines.

Medicine comes from continuous, thoughtful practice of what we do in clinic, and how we approach that work. The practice of medicine is more — much more — than simply treating illness. It is more than acquiring skills and techniques. And it is more than memorizing the experiences of others. It takes a certain kind of eye, an inquiring mind and relentlessly inquisitive heart.

Qiological is an opportunity to deepen our practice with conversations that go deep into acupuncture, herbal medicine, cultivation practices, and the practice of having a practice. It’s an opportunity to sit in the company of others with similar interests, but perhaps very different minds. Through these dialogues perhaps we can better understand our craft.

Play

Open in

22 episodes
weekly
Avg 1 hr 26 min
English

Support the show

Goes straight to the publisher. podnod takes nothing.

Support the show!

Episodes 22

Newest Oldest Longest

All20 Unplayed20 In progress0 Played0

Counted on this page — what you have heard stays on this device, so it is not something the list can be paged by.

#475
Tuesday · 2 hr 28 min
475 The Practice of Seeing- Ming, Hidden Jing and Original Face • Anita Chopra & Angela Hunt
In this episode Qiological celebrates its ninth anniversary. For nine years new conversations on East Asian medicine and methods have appeared in your podcast feed each Tuesday morning Anita Chopra, our guest from episode 429, joins us again not just to discuss face reading, but to give us a demonstration of how she uses severeal of the basic maps that chart the face. We’re also joined by Angela Hunt, the winner of our drawing to appear on this episode and receive a face reading. Listen in for a conversation that touches on mentorship, practice building, being authentically who we are clinical work, a bit of Qiological’s backstory, and reflections on the journey that has brought the podcast to its ninth anniversary.
#474
August 18 · 1 hr 10 min
474 Character, Nature & Fate, A Manual of Polestar Astrology • Gregory Done
As astrology draws curiosity as both a spiritual practice and a lens for self-understanding. Its symbolic language of image can speak meaningfully to our modern linear life. In this conversation, we visit with Gregory Done we explore the relationship between fate and free will, and how inherited ancestral patterns shape our character, our challenges, and our sense of purpose. We also discuss the difference between astrology as dialogue versus fortune telling, the nature of "ghosts" as unresolved generational trauma, and the deeper role of inner nature as a freedom untouched by fate. Listen in for a discussion on ancestry, symbol, and resolution, and what it means to work toward wholeness within the currents of one's own life.
#473
August 11 · 1 hr 10 min
473 Right Tradition for the Condition, Combining classical Maps in the Treatment of Long Covid • Brendan Kelly
A diagnosis can feel like a single label, but some conditions reveal a wider terrain — one that spans immune response, cultural rhythm, and slow imbalance over time. In this conversation with Brendan Kelly, we explore long COVID through the lens of classical Chinese medicine, looking at how frameworks like the Shang Han Lun's cold-to-heat progression and the Wen Bing's epidemic theory make sense of a condition with over two hundred possible symptoms. We discuss treatment not as a single formula, but as traditions blended and matched to where a disease has been and where it's heading. We also touch on why epidemics are never purely individual, and how a culture's own excess heat may shape its susceptibility to illness. Listen in for a conversation that brings clinical experience and classical theory to a condition modern medicine still struggles to treat.
#472
August 4 · 1 hr 8 min
472 Art of Medicine • Bonnie Wright
Much of what happens in the treatment room never makes it onto an intake form, yet it often shapes the outcome as much as anything measurable does. In this conversation with Bonnie Wright, we explore what she calls the art of medicine, the intuitive, relational sense of truly knowing the patient in front of you, and how the body's structures act less as separate parts than as one continuously adapting whole. We also touch on what gets lost when certainty crowds out listening, and why the most useful insights often arrive in the things we weren't looking for. Listen in for a conversation that moves between anatomy and intuition, structure and change, and the practice of staying open to what doesn't yet fit.
#471
July 28 · 1 hr 14 min
471 History Series: Nature is the Primary Curriculum • Judy Worsley
Practicing acupuncture for over fifty years asks us to trust intuition and stay open even when the path ahead isn't clear. But what happens when a life's direction comes not from planning, but from being pulled toward what you love? Judy Worsley is a five element acupuncturist who trained alongside J.R. Worsley for decades, helping shape this medicine's growth into the profession it is today. In this conversation, she joins Michael to explore the tension between certainty and surrender, and how following what feels true can become its own kind of guidance. Listen in as they trace her path from a free-roaming Florida childhood, through law school and a hitchhiking trip across America, to a chance encounter that changed everything; how clarity differs from having all the answers; why difficult moments deserve to be revisited rather than carried; and what it means to spend a lifetime devoted to this work.
#470
July 21 · 1 hr 17 min
470 Wen Bing Anatomy • Kerri Westhauser
As chronic, hard-to-treat disorders become more common in clinic, many practitioners are returning to Wen Bing theory for answers. In this conversation with Kerri Westhauser, we explore lurking pathogen theory and how deep-lying evils help explain complex conditions like lupus and POTS. We also discuss why tonification often backfires in chronic disease, and the importance of venting, regulating, and mobilizing Shen to keep the body's pathways open. Listen in for a practical rethinking of the Wei and Qi levels and how to locate disease that has gone into hiding.
#469
July 14 · 1 hr 20 min
469 You Don't Know Before You Know • Shaun Goodman
Not every point sits in the textbook. Others only appear when the body decides to show them. In this episode we visit with Shaun Goodman, longtime practitioner of Dr. Tung's acupuncture, a Taiwanese system built on its own map of the body. What begins as a question of pronunciation quickly opens into a wider conversation about channels, diagnosis, and the discipline of looking closely. We explore the palm as a diagnostic tool, the logic of treating through the thigh and shin rather than the familiar fourteen channels, and why some of the most effective points have no fixed name or location. Why not-knowing deserves patience rather than anxiety. And how a chance discovery from French auricular medicine gave Shaun a way to find points no teacher was there to point out. Beneath the technique is a simpler idea: that what looks like magic is really just a system, once you learn how to see it.
#468
July 7 · 1 hr 35 min
468 The Challenge of Chinese Medicine • Alex Jacobs
As acupuncture and Chinese medicine face regulatory pressure and institutional change on both sides of the Atlantic, many practitioners are asking what it takes to preserve the tradition while still being taken seriously as medical professionals. In this conversation, we visit with Alex Jacobs, CEO of the British Acupuncture Council, we explore the relationship between tradition and regulation, and how this balance shapes education standards, professional identity, and public trust in the medicine. We also discuss the value of holding contradiction in clinical practice, the difference between the "disciple" and the "heretic" as two complementary ways of learning, and the deeper role of listening and the heart in diagnosis. Listen in for a discussion on regulation, lineage, and mastery, and staying rooted in the Dao of the medicine while navigating the demands of practicing it today.
#467
June 30 · 53 min
467 History Series, Rebellious Empirical Scientists Pt. 2 • Bill Prensky & Gene Bruno
Part Two How does a profession begin? Not on paper. Not with licensing boards or schools. Often enough, it starts with a handful of curious people who become convinced there's another way to do things. Part determination, part serendipity, and perhaps a good measure of luck. Bill Prensky and Gene Bruno were there before acupuncture had a place in American healthcare. In the wake of the Vietnam War, student protests, and a generation questioning nearly everything, they walked away from academic research that no longer made sense to them. Their Tai Chi teacher, Marshall Ho, introduced them to Dr. Kim, who reluctantly agreed to teach a small group that in time became like family. What followed is equal parts history and improbable story: treating patients at the Crossroads of the World, translating across languages, creating lecture series just to afford tuition, traveling with their teacher, and helping establish the first legal and educational footholds for acupuncture. Listen in to this conversation on trading a graduate education for a study that didn’t have a syllabus, credentialing or degree, helped acupuncture to find its footing in America.
#467
June 30 · 1 hr 40 min
467 History Series, Rebellious Empirical Scientists Pt. 1 • Bill Prensky & Gene Bruno
Part One. How does a profession begin? Not on paper. Not with licensing boards or schools. Often enough, it starts with a handful of curious people who become convinced there's another way to do things. Part determination, part serendipity, and perhaps a good measure of luck. Bill Prensky and Gene Bruno were there before acupuncture had a place in American healthcare. In the wake of the Vietnam War, student protests, and a generation questioning nearly everything, they walked away from academic research that no longer made sense to them. Their Tai Chi teacher, Marshall Ho, introduced them to Dr. Kim, who reluctantly agreed to teach a small group that in time became like family. What followed is equal parts history and improbable story: treating patients at the Crossroads of the World, translating across languages, creating lecture series just to afford tuition, traveling with their teacher, and helping establish the first legal and educational footholds for acupuncture. Listen in to this conversation on trading a graduate education for a study that didn’t have a syllabus, credentialing or degree, helped acupuncture to find its footing in America.
June 25 · 2 hr 2 min
The Cost of Entry—Loans, Schools, and Sustainability • Bex Groebner
It’s not news that there are changes afoot in the world of education. You’re probably already well aware of the closure, over the past few years, of schools with a long history. There are concerns with loan debt that have been an issue since Obama was president. Most recently, the changes to student loans that not only fundamentally affect the acupuncture trade, but will change the landscape for graduate education in a notable way. In this conversation with Bex Groebner we untangle the intersection of education, accreditation, federal student loan programs and professional accountability. We explore how changes in funding will put financial pressure on schools that built a business model based on the higher loan caps of GRAD+ loans. How student debt affects those who are mortgaging their future on loans that many cannot pay back. Along with what could happen if the levels of student enrollment drop to the point where our accreditor (ACAHM) and certification organization (NCBAHM) lose the funding needed to sustain their business activities. Bex suggests that in an uncertain world, it’s best to have a back up, and that is a large part of the motivation behind her work at the Acupuncture Workforce Alliance. Most of all, she’d like to see an acupuncture education be accessible, affordable and within reach of anyone who’d like to learn this medicine so they can serve their communities, and be able to support themselves and their families.
#466
June 23 · 1 hr 29 min
466 Not Two, The Geometry of Heaven and Earth • Johan Hausen
Some teachings are preserved in books. Others are preserved in people. In this episode we visit with Johann Hausen, translator, publisher, practitioner, and long-time student of Daoist traditions in the Wudang Mountains. What begins with martial arts and Chinese medicine quickly opens into a wider conversation about cultivation, character, and the responsibility of carrying knowledge forward. We explore the foundations of internal alchemy, not as a collection of techniques, but as a lifelong process of refining oneself through everyday life. Why difficult people may be our greatest teachers. How attachment can hide in the things we love most. And why the real work often happens far from the meditation cushion. Along the way we discuss preserving traditional teachings, the role of books in a digital world, and Johann’s work translating and publishing texts that might otherwise be lost. Beneath it all is a simple but challenging question: what does it mean to become a better human being, rather than simply a more knowledgeable one?
June 18 · 1 hr 28 min
Deconstruction or Innovation • Valerie Hobbs
We tend to think of the acupuncture profession as something fixed and stable, but the reality is that it is always in motion. The practice of East Asian medicine in North America has been shaped by decades of effort—by practitioners, educators, regulators, and advocates working to create a place for this medicine in the American healthcare system. In this conversation with Valerie Hobbs, we take a historical look at how the profession bootstrapped itself into being. Along with how the creation of educational standards, accreditation, certification, and professional organizations, helped to give the profession the form it has today.. We also discuss some of the tensions shaping the present moment. Questions about educational requirements, student debt, declining enrollment, professional identity, integration into mainstream healthcare, and the uncertain future of acupuncture education. This conversation is an invitation to consider the forces shaping our profession and to consider how we might respond. Beneath the challenges is a recurring theme: the future of this medicine will not be determined by any single institution or idea, but by our willingness to listen, engage thoughtfully, and find ways of working toward our shared goals.
#465
June 16 · 1 hr 32 min
465 Fire and Water, The Fire Horse at Mid-Year • Christine Cannon
As the Fire Horse year reaches its peak, many practitioners are noticing shifts in both the environment and the clinic. In this conversation with Christine Cannon, we explore the interaction of fire and water through the lens of Wu Yun Liu Qi, and how these energies may be influencing respiratory health, anxiety, fatigue, and emotional resilience. We also discuss the importance of protecting Wei Qi, creating restorative space, and finding balance during periods of heightened activity and change. Listen in for a practical discussion on seasonal influences, constitutional health, and navigating the energetic themes of the year.
June 11 · 1 hr 1 min
What is Essential • Kathleen Lumiere
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 into 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 generation of practitioners doesn't just survive, but finds a path to true gainful employment.
#464
June 9 · 1 hr 38 min
464 Time, Timing and the Timeless • Peter Firebrace
Many of us experience life through schedules, deadlines, and calendars, yet beneath them are deeper patterns that shape how we grow, adapt, heal, and change. In this conversation with Peter Firebrace, we explore Chinese perspectives on time, timing, and the timeless. Through seasonal cycles, the Chinese calendar, and the rhythms observed in nature, we look at how a deeper awareness of time can inform both clinical practice and everyday life. We also touch on what may be lost when we become disconnected from the natural patterns around us, and why reconnecting with those rhythms can offer a different way of understanding ourselves and our patients. Listen in for a conversation that weaves together Chinese philosophy, clinical insight, and the enduring relationship between human life and the cycles of nature.
June 4 · 1 hr 19 min
Realities of the Math • Ryan Hofer
We’re at a moment where the structure of loans and professional education is changing. Not just for the acupuncture profession, but across the entire educational landscape. While it seems the storm has suddenly blown in, it’s been brewing for a while. In this conversation with Ryan Hofer we discuss the reality of Grad Plus loans, the true cost of them in terms of the interest they generate, and why the "math doesn't math" for a lot of people entering the field right now. We explore the various ways loans can be resolved, and the shame and anxiety that graduates experience when they realize they are in over their head financially. There’s also this uncomfortable question about how we got here—how a business model based on student debt became the default, and what happens when that faucet finally gets turned off. Change is coming and our profession is going to have to find a way to work with far less money coming for student loans. And we also need to reckon with the unsustainable debt that practitioners of an earlier generation did not need to face.
#463
June 2 · 1 hr 28 min
463 Complexity, Boundaries and Biomes • Neil Theise
Clinical practice asks us to recognise patterns, trust experience, and make decisions under uncertainty. But what happens when discovery comes not from certainty, but from staying open to surprise? Dr. Neil Theise is a liver pathologist, stem cell researcher, Zen practitioner, and one of the scientists behind the discovery of the interstitium. In this conversation, he joins Michael to explore the tension between expertise and beginner’s mind, and how curiosity itself can become a path to deeper understanding. Listen into this discussion as they explore the body as both structure and living continuum; how fascia, fluid, electricity, and awareness may be more interconnected than we realise; why perception changes depending on the “scale” we look from; and how science, meditation, and direct experience each reveal different truths about what it means to be human.
May 28 · 1 hr 56 min
Reckoning the Present, Wayfinding the Future • Danielle Reghi
The acupuncture and East Asian profession is facing a number of critical challenges as long-established schools close, new federal guidelines on graduate education loans will dramatically change how much students can borrow, and fewer students consider a career as an acupuncturist. How to wayfind through these troubled times? That is the question explored in this series with practitioners, researchers, and educators in the field of East Asian medicine. In this conversation with Danielle Reghi we follow the arc of her career from acquiring and dealing with upwards of 200K in debt, to building a multi-location practice and learning how business acumen is as necessary as clinical skills. She is the president of the Oregon Association of Acupuncturists. She played a key role in drafting the Oregon Acupuncture Workforce Sustainability Proposal, which considers the effect of the new RISE and AHEAD metrics from the federal government and how those affect the amount graduate students may borrow. Additionally this proposal looks at other educational options and alternative pathways that can lead to licensure in the State of Oregon. Any discussion of the future requires a clear eyed view of the present. You’ll get that in this conversation with Danielle, along with some innovative thinking about what’s up around the bend in the road..
#462
May 26 · 1 hr 25 min
462 History Series: When Resistance Strengthens Tradition • James Flowers
Medicine is never only about treatment. It also carries culture, identity, and memory. Sometimes preserving a medicine is a way of preserving a people. In this episode we visit with James Flowers to explore a potent moment in the history of Korean medicine and how Hanbang became part of Korea’s cultural resistance during the Japanese colonization. Not through politics or violence, but through preserving ways of healing, thinking, and living. We discuss how medical ideas moved between Korea, China, and Japan, the role of Yangsheng in everyday life, and how Korean medicine resisted separating mind from body in the way modern systems often do. This conversation also touches on the deeper question of how medicine lives within culture—not only through practitioners and institutions, but through families, daily habits, stories, and collective memory. Listen into this conversation that weaves together history, medicine, identity, and the enduring cultural force of East Asian healing traditions.

Showing 1–20 of 22 episodes