My education in Chinese healing and martial arts has been an interesting journey and I decided to share the latest part of my adventure with the world. I have decided to go back to school at the Pacific College of Health & Science in Chicago to become a Doctor of Acupuncture & Chinese medicine.
I am in the masters/doctoral program and I plan to blog the entire experience as much as I can and that will include articles like this with pics and I will also include some videos. Keep checking back so you can find out everything about my journey through PCOM Chicago to become a doctor of oriental medicine.
Me? A doctor of oriental medicine?
Let me just start out by saying that going to school to become a doctor of of any kind of medicine would be a very big step for anyone but for personal reasons, medicine is the one path I swore long ago to have nothing to do with. I guess we do all grow and learn and I have learned that Chinese/Oriental medicine is much more in tune with my head and heart than what I’ve seen from the West. I have seen it do so much for the people I care about that I woke up one day and realized that with what I have personally seen qigong do to heal people naturally and knowing that qigong was the original root of Chinese medicine it became clear that becoming a doctor of oriental medicine is the next step for me and exactly what I am meant to do.
I like to approach things from an intuitive perspecitve and I have to feel drawn to something or someone or I move on. After reviewing more than one school before starting, I believe that PCOM at their Chicago location is the best place I could have chosen for for my education as a doctor and so far I love what I’ve seen.
And So It Begins…
We’re on a trimester schedule with no long breaks. We do a 14 week session, take two weeks off and do another session till the program is finished. I’ve just finished my first session so I thought it would be the perfect time to start blogging my journey.
Here I am leaving the apartment to jump on the red line and go take my last final.
I am going part time because I feel that it gives me the time to absorb more from my classes instead of just learning enough to pass the tests. This also lets me have the time to continue teaching my classes in kung fu, taiji and qigong while I’m learning. I think it’s going to be a better experience if I do it this way as opposed to seeing how fast I can get my doctorate while doing nothing else while I’m going to school.
Here’s a quick look at my first session as I learn to be a doctor.
Session 1 Classes:
For my first session I took Fundamentals of Chinese Medicine-1, Anatomy & Physiology-1 and Medical terminology. The main thing I want to point out is that every teacher I’ve met in the program so far is passionate about what they do and what they teach. I am very intersted in Chinese Medicine so the fundamentals class was work, but fun work and I wasn’t surprised that I really enjoyed it. I was dreading Medical Terminology and A&P but the teachers were especially engaging and clearly loved the subjects they were teaching so it helped me see that it could be fun to get into the material which really helped me enjoy the classes and look forward to my next session of A&P as well as the others I’ll be taking.
How I’ve Been Received By PCOM
I could go on all day about how much I loved the people running the school and all the teachers. I could tell you about how they treat us all like we’re one big family and how that really enriches the learning environment but I also have to mention how quickly they embraced me what I teach.
Qigong
I saw long ago just how powerful qigong can be for healing and for the longest time I thought that what qigong could offer was all I needed but during that time, I worked with licensed oriental healers and saw what kind of power some of the methods they knew could be. I am especially interested in herbal treatments but those classes are farther down the road.
PCOM has not only welcomed me as a student, they have welcomed the classes I teach. They have been wonderful as to making sure I could have the room I needed in a way that allows me to keep them free to the public. This just cements in my love of this school and I can’t wait to see what my next classes will be.
More About Free Qigong Classes At PCOM
Check out this link to learn more about our free qigong classes at the college Free Qigong Class
We also teach a free class each Sunday afternoon at PCOM that includes some kung fu, some taiji and some qigong. Check out this link for more info Free Kung Fu-Tai Chi Class
