Alumni Spotlight: Jungmin Ahn – Healing Through Acupuncture and Eastern Medicine
Published
Jungmin Ahn, an Acupuncture and Eastern Medicine Practitioner, graduated from Bastyr in 2008. He owns Silverlake Clinic, an acupuncture and integrative clinic in Mill Creek, Washington. Jungmin was honored as the Seattle Times Best Pain Specialist 2023.
- What led you to the Acupuncture program at Bastyr?
Bastyr was the best acupuncture school, the only university-level school in the U.S. When I visited the Bastyr campus, I just loved the environment. Since Bastyr has the ND program, it has good Western medicine training. I wanted to make an integrative medicine hospital. I thought Bastyr was the best fit for my needs.
- How did your acupuncture education guide you in your career path?
I practiced integrative Korean medicine, and then I received more advanced training after school. It’s a little bit different than Bastyr’s TCM teaching. However, learning from many excellent professors gave me the backbone of East Asian medicine. The teaching clinic has a sound system with a preview and review of treatments to go over with supervisors.
- What were your clinical interests as you developed into your career?
For acupuncture, pain relief is my main area. I mainly treat headache/migraine, neck/cervical radiculopathy, low back / sciatica. Because our clinic is research-based, I needed to narrow down the treatment area to keep track with indexing before and after treatment, such as the neck disability index. We have a high success rate. I would like to do more pain research to prove our wonderful medicine.
Second is insomnia. Our clinic conducts sleep research with Dr. Lumiere to see the effect of acupuncture on sleep quality. I got IRB approved Bastyr. We use sleep tracker to show both subjective and objective evidence. We have a research team with an Dr. Lumiere, an MD, the Korean medical society of Acupotomology, a data analyst, and an IT consultant. I really appreciate researchers who work with me. It’s very hard to do research in a small clinic, but our medicine needs to have evidence to prove that it is effective.
- How did you decide and plan to have your own business and clinic?
I worked with a neurologist, primary care physician, chiropractor, NDs, and acupuncturists before I opened the clinic. So, I knew how to treat patients and how to operate the clinic. Financially, working in a small clinic cannot support my living as an employee. My vision was to make a research based integrative medicine teaching clinic. With most small clinics in ND and acupuncture, we’re busy with patients and operations, with no time to collect data, research and publish. That’s why our medicine is not advancing due to lack of data and evidence. I have invested lots of money to make my vision come true. This includes an IT system, online medical record form system, clinical trial model, clinical assistant, research network, and pricing.
5) If you could talk to yourself as a first-year AEAM student, what might you have told yourself?
Study hard when you can focus on studying. Don’t try to master all diseases. Focus on what you like and become good at it. Study deeper than wider. Your medical knowledge is important, but after you graduate, as many students worry, many graduates struggle to stay in our field. Why? Lack of business mind and training. Your medical interest needs to match market needs. You want to be a practitioner, but also your financial success matters. So, find a successful clinic owner who can be your ideal model. Make a connection with mentors and learn from them.
6) What would you say to a student who may be overwhelmed in the program, struggling to keep the dream alive?
Finding calmness, no matter what the situation is important. This way you can help patients because you can relate better, having your own situation. Find someone who can help you overcome your challenges.
I love my job. You know, in reality, patients come to my clinic after they have tried everything: PT, Chiropractic, injection, and surgery. Since acupuncture works faster than other modalities, I get so much respect from the patients. If you can complete the training and get the license, you can help so many people.
Jungmin Ahn
Acupuncture & Eastern Medicine Practitioner
