About Dongchen

My path to Chinese medicine began through movement.

After years of practicing and teaching yoga, I encountered a movement tradition that required me to learn the pathways of the Chinese medicine channels. It changed the way I understood the body. More than any movement practice I had studied before, it deepened my own practice and sparked a lasting curiosity about the channels—not simply as lines on a diagram, but as living relationships that could be felt and observed.

That curiosity became the foundation of my work in Chinese medicine.

My clinical experience has taken me from community-style acupuncture to outpatient and inpatient care at UC San Diego Health, where I have treated patients across a broad spectrum of health and illness—including prenatal and postpartum care, oncology, chronic conditions, pain and recovery, and medically complex patients following major procedures such as cardiac surgery.

Working across these settings has reinforced something fundamental to the way I practice: a diagnosis matters, but it never tells the whole story of the person in front of me.

My approach is rooted in the classical traditions of East Asian medicine, with particular attention to the Huangdi Neijing, the Nan Jing, and the classical channel systems. The teachings of Ann Cecil-Sterman and the tradition transmitted through Jeffrey Yuen have been an important influence, expanding my understanding beyond the twelve Primary Channels to the Sinew, Luo, Divergent, and Extraordinary channel systems.

My study of Japanese Meridian Therapy brings another dimension to this work through careful pulse and abdominal diagnosis, channel palpation, root treatment, and gentle stimulation.

Together, these experiences have shaped a way of practicing that is both classical and deeply individual:

Listen carefully. Treat precisely. Use only as much intervention as the person needs. And allow the treatment to change as the person changes.