Jan Bull

I am Jan Bull. 

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I love being in the beauty of nature and going on walks in the woods or desert or looking up at the stars. I love playing table tennis, cooking with my son when he is home and laughing with my daughter and grandson. 

I have done a lot of stuff in my life. I studied anthropology and psychology, I've been an assistant aeronautical engineer, I've spent a lot of years in health policy research, been the administrative director of an institute of spirituality,  and health lead specialist in competency-based medical education. 

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I came to acupuncture, qigong, and Daoist philosophy through my own health journey to heal a 30 year sacroiliac injury and osteoporosis. I had been unable to find a way to address the pain with traditional physical therapy, or massage, or various other modalities.  In order to get through the day was taking 1800 mg of ibuprofen a day. After a year of this I became increasingly worried about the possibility of developing an ulcer or kidney problems. After 7 months of acupuncture, my pain was gone and I was no longer having to take medication.  Subsequently, I discovered Qigong actually helps maintain my flexibiliity and keep pain at bay. 

I know personally how pain every day weighs on one's soul and can impact our daily living. How can we find more freedom in our body and minds?

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Since studying Chinese Medicine, I discovered that the depths of its healing go well beyond muscoloskeletal issues and meets us at the limits of our personal beliefs and emotional landscape.  These led me to uncover deep emotional issues of the heart. I realized in some ways my  bones were literally crumbling in the crumbling of my marriage. Sometimes our healing is in our capacity to 

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​Schooling and Credentials:

I have been training in Qigong for 10 years.  I have been working with Damo Mitchell for 3 years and the several lineages of masters he has worked with in China.  I have also studied with 

4 years in Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine at the Maryland University of Integrative Health and was a licensed acupuncturist in the state of Maryland until moving to Toronto in 2020.

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I have a Masters in Public Policy from the University of Minnesota and worked 25 years in various areas of health policy. Most recently, I worked at the Association of American Medical Colleges in the area of new models for Medical Education.

 

What Do Acupuncturists Learn:  Acupuncture students learn anatomy, physiology, pathophysiology from both a Western and Chinese medicine perspective,  and we learn some some Western physical assessment.  We also learn the essential theories of Chinese Medicine and principles of healing . These principles help us to determine how to restore balance and harmony that prevent the body and mind from doing it's amazing job of integrating our internal and external relationships in the world.

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How does Acupuncture Work?  Acupuncture has a growing evidence base. So much so, that the Joint Commission has now required hospitals to offer alternatives such as acupuncture in place of opioids.  Western scientific methods are now beginning to identify some exciting mechanisms for how this ancient healing modality might work. There have been studies which identify changes in the brain itself as the result of needling certain points.  This is very interesting as the brain is a key center of hormonal control over our body's function and over the stress response.  More recently, there is exploration into the relationship of the mechanisms of acupuncture as they relate to embryonic development and fascia in the body (see fascinating video by Dr. Daniel Keown (UK).

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Here are some intriguing resources if you are interested:

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bbc documentary science of acupuncture - Google Search. (n.d.). Retrieved September 4, 2015, from https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=bbc+documentary+science+of+acupuncture&safe=active

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Myers, T. (n.d.). Anatomy Trains. Retrieved July 1, 2014, from http://www.anatomytrains.com/at/

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Keown, D. (2014). The Spark in the Machine: How the Science of Acupuncture Explains the Mysteries of Western Medicine (1 edition). London ; Philadelphia: Singing Dragon.

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MacPherson, H., Hammerschlag, R., Coeytaux, R. R., Davis, R. T., Harris, R. E., Kong, J.-T., … Wayne, P. M. (2016). Unanticipated Insights into Biomedicine from the Study of Acupuncture. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine (New York, N.Y.), 22(2), 101–107. http://doi.org/10.1089/acm.2015.0184

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Zhu, H. (2014). Acupoints Initiate the Healing Process. Medical Acupuncture, 26(5), 264–270. http://doi.org/10.1089/acu.2014.1057

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