Friday

We live in exciting times with unprecedented levels of opportunity for connection and access to information. Presently, acupuncture is enjoying increasing popularity as more and more patients choose to access it and an increasing number of mainstream institutions offer acupuncture and recommend it. However, the acupuncture profession also faces a number of challenges. On the one hand, energetic critics attempt to convince those who will listen that it doesn’t work, while those outside of our profession are adding it to their own practices, sometimes with minimal training. How can we make sense of this landscape? How can we understand these threats and opportunities in a way that allows us to effectively forge a more positive future for public health?

In this talk, we will zoom right on out and start with a very high-level overview of the evolution of thought, why different ways of thinking flourish in different times, and how we can understand our profession’s way of thinking about healthcare in the context of modern medical science. We will then look at how best to communicate with different individuals and institutions with various types of thinking, in order to improve public health and save lives by improving access to acupuncture.

Mel Hopper Koppelman is passionate about improving people's access to safe and effective healthcare by communicating acupuncture's scientific evidence. She is the executive director of Evidence Based Acupuncture, an international non-profit organisation dedicated to improving public health through better information about acupuncture’s considerable evidence base.

Mel completed her MSc in acupuncture from the Northern College of Acupuncture (NCA) in York, UK in 2012 and a second MSc in nutrition and functional medicine from the University of Western States in Portland, Oregon, USA in 2015. She is a reviewer for a number of peer-reviewed medical journals and has published numerous articles about acupuncture research.

Mel is a research supervisor and guest lecturer at the NCA master’s programme in York, UK. Her blog, abetterwaytohealth.com, provides readers with informative analysis of acupuncture research and evidence-based medicine. She practises acupuncture and functional medicine in Rhode Island, USA.