Qiological Podcast

There are seasons in a woman’s life that don’t arrive quietly. They come with a tremor, a shimmer, a sense that something deep in the architecture of who you are is being rewritten. It’s not collapse, but instead a reordering that can’t be ignored.In this conversation with Heidi Lovie, we wander into the transformation of menopause. She invites us to consider this transition not as a breakdown, but as a profound renegotiation between heart and kidney, ancestry and agency, biology and identity.Listen into this discussion as we explore how hormones shape our sense of reality, why perimenopause can feel like the caterpillar dissolving into goo phase of becoming a butterfly, how grief and sovereignty intertwined in midlife, and ways clinicians can expand their imagination beyond the default kidney-yin story. This is about expanding language, reframing experience, and recognizing the second spring as a time of creativity, clarity, and unapologetic self-definition.

Medicine finds its way into our lives not through textbooks, but by getting sand in our shoes, salt in our hair, and noticing how our hands long to be in the dirt—or on people.Liz Vitale didn’t simply move to the Oregon Coast. She rooted herself there among fishermen, surfers, firefighters, foresters, Latina moms, and retirees. Over time she became part of the village, not just as a practitioner, but as a neighbor, a volunteer firefighter, a customer at the grocery store and regular at the surfer pub.In this conversation with Liz, we explore what happens when medicine is not practiced from behind clinic doors, but amidst the actual people it serves. We talk about treating fishermen underserved by mainstream care, how not to impose our “Chinese medicine stories” on patients, how community softens judgment, and how sometimes medicine works quietly—by helping people first feel seen.Listen into this discussion as we explore how healing unfolds differently in rural places, why living joyfully may be part of the prescription, how treating everybody includes those who don’t agree with you, and how sometimes you find out how your treatments are working not from a clinic visit—but from the local pub, where someone shouts over fish and chips, “Liz, the herbs are working.”

Dr. Marc Grossman, an optometrist and licensed acupuncturist, integrates Western eye care with Chinese medicine. He reveals how eyesight intertwines with emotions and personal histories. Marc discusses how nearsightedness can stem from overwhelm and how eye conditions might reflect emotional dynamics. He critiques traditional prescription methods for their rigidity and highlights the importance of understanding each patient's unique story. The conversation encourages viewing eyes as storytellers, emphasizing a holistic approach to vision care and healing.

Some people find acupuncture after a twisted ankle, a twist of fate, or some stubborn health condition that finally surrenders to a few needles. But every now and then you meet someone who caught the spark early—before the world had a chance to talk them out of their own curiosity.In this conversation with Will Martin, we trace the path of a high-school kid who dove headfirst into Chinese medicine—ordering textbooks at sixteen, poring over ideas he could barely pronounce, and never letting that fascination go. Will brings a mix of youthful boldness and genuine reverence for the medicine. He’s thoughtful about the landscape of healthcare, clear-eyed about the challenges in our field, and articulate in how he sees acupuncture stepping more fully into the role of primary care.Listen into this discussion as we explore why he thinks the medicine needs less defensiveness and more confidence, what it means to keep your treatments simple, how to stand in your authority as a new practitioner, and why the future of acupuncture might be brighter than we’ve been telling ourselves.

Punk rock and Chinese medicine might seem worlds apart, but both pushed back on dominant systems. Punk challenged the mainstream music industry; Chinese medicine, the dominance of biomedicine. Each created space for alternative voices, for people questioning authority and rewriting the rules.In this conversation with Tyler Phan, we explore how rebellion, identity, and power intersect in the making of American Chinese medicine. His research looks at how a healing tradition that arrived through the Chinese diaspora was caught by the imagination of white countercultural movements, shaped by state regulation, and often distanced from the very communities that carried it here.Listen into this discussion as we unpack Foucault’s ideas of power, the counterculture’s fascination with the East, the formation of professional standards, and how the DIY ethos of punk still hums beneath it all.Tyler’s perspective challenges us to see that medicine is never just about healing—it’s also about who gets to define what counts as knowledge, and who that power ultimately serves.

Sometimes clarity doesn’t come from adding more—it comes from taking away. Simplifying helps to see more clearly what’s already there. In medicine, that often means noticing the simple patterns hiding beneath complex presentations.In this conversation with Fang Cai, we explore the meeting place between Saam acupuncture and dermatology. Fang brings years of clinical experience and study with Mazen Al-Khafaji, and she shares how integrating Saam principles with herbal dermatology has deepened both her diagnostic precision and her ability to communicate with patients in clear, everyday terms.Listen into this discussion on using Saam acupuncture for troublesome skin conditions such as eczema, psoriasis, urticaria, rosacea, and acne. We’ll explore how the skin reveals patterns of physiology and imbalance, and why simplicity in treatment—done with discernment—can create profound change.Fang’s reflections remind us that good medicine doesn’t always come from complexity. Sometimes it’s about listening closely, trusting what you see, and being the kind of practitioner you’d want to visit yourself.

The tools we use to shape our world, they in turn shape us. Whether it’s the brush in a painter’s hand or the software code that organizes the clinic day. The interface becomes part of our perception. Technology, like medicine, is an expression of relationship.In this conversation with Kenan Akbas, we trace the unlikely path from acupuncture to algorithms. This is a story that begins in the club scene of 1990s New York, winds its way through photography, Chinese medicine, Taiwan, and eventually the creation of platforms that help practitioners connect more fluidly with their patients. Kenan’s work sits at the intersection of tradition, innovation and inquisitiveness.Listen into this discussion as we explore what it means to build technology rooted in care and how AI might become not a replacement for human skill, but a partner in the development of it. There are challenges in evolving with our tools as we move into a new stage of development with our exo-nervous system. There’s no going back, the question is how do you move forward into a new terrain.

Sometimes the most interesting things happen when we stop trying to confirm what we think we know. In clinic, certainty can close doors—but curiosity opens them. There’s a kind of listening that goes beyond the intellect, a way of paying attention that allows discovery to unfold on its own time.In this conversation with Dan Bensky, we explore the art of noticing. What it means to let medicine be a call and response rather than a performance of knowledge. We talk about the practitioner’s stance—one that values modesty over mastery, sensation before interpretation, and the quiet skill of finding something you weren’t looking for.Listen into this discussion as we trace ideas of Tong and connection, the dance between palpation and perception, the discipline involved with not-knowing, and how true competence might simply mean being willing to check yourself.This is a conversation for anyone who’s ever paused mid-treatment and thought, “Huh… that’s odd.” Because sometimes, that moment—the one that unsettles what you thought you knew—is where the treatment really begins.

The 1970s were a turbulent time—streets alive with protest, classrooms charged with new ideas, and an entire generation questioning the stories they’d inherited. It was a decade of upheaval, but also one where curious opportunities arose. For some, those opportunities led not to politics or protest, but to the quiet pulse of a medicine few in America had ever heard of.In this conversation with Gene Bruno, we wander through those early days of acupuncture in the United States. From campus strikes and existentialist lectures with Angela Davis to finding himself in the second class of Dr. Kim’s students, Gene’s story carries the spirit of curiosity and rebellion that shaped an era. His path was less about a plan and more about following questions—whether that meant bringing acupuncture into UCLA’s pain clinic, or rediscovering forgotten traditions with horses on California racetracks.Listen into this discussion as we explore acupuncture’s improbable foothold in the counterculture of the 70s, the razor’s edge moment when the profession nearly became the sole territory of physicians, and how veterinary acupuncture was reborn in America before returning to the world stage.

Ever wonder if being human is less about mechanics and more about patterns? Not the kind of patterns you memorize in a textbook, but the ones that repeat like spirals in a sunflower, or the way a thought can shape the body before we even realize it.In this conversation with Rory Hiltbrand, we wander through the field of being human—where Daoist numerics, fractals, and the golden ratio intersect with medicine and daily practice. Rory draws from both classical Daoist thought and his own clinical experience, weaving geometry, physiology, and spirit into something that feels both practical and mysterious.Listen into this discussion as we explore the body as a field and the mind as its knower, how intention can be grounded in embodied experience rather than wishful thinking, why ministerial fire might look a lot like the nervous system, and the curious ways symmetry becomes a treatment strategy.What I love in talking with Rory is how ideas that seem abstract at first end up grounding us in clinic. Patterns that echo through heaven and earth can also help us know when the best time to treat is simply when the patient is on the table.