Summer 2019: The Beginning
I graduated in May, but my undergraduate thesis was just the beginning of a beautiful journey. I continued my research this summer in the Bay Area with some incredible people. Alongside, I also worked at the Freedom Community Clinic, a pop-up clinic aimed at bringing integrative medicine resources to underserved youth communities in the East Bay. Below is a quick overview of the highlights of this summer:
I worked at Freedom Community Clinic with the extraordinary founder Bernadette Lim. We led a five-week workshop series called “Still I Rise” at two minority youth community organizations in Oakland. At the end of the summer, we also hosted the inaugural Healing Community Dinner, which brought together practitioners (primary care, acupuncture, herbal medicine, reiki, and more), students, and volunteers to discuss local health needs.
Dr. Tolbert Small, “The People’s Doctor,” was the physician for members of the Black Panther Party. I interviewed him for my thesis in February and he warmly welcomed me to his home and family this summer. He gave me a copy of his house keys and I continued my archival work while he worked 50-hour weeks at the Native American Health Center in Oakland and San Francisco. He was one of nineteen on the BPP’s trip historic trip to China in 1972 and has a suitcase full of records from the trip (including journals and photos), which I digitized and organized. I often brought dinner, and over our meals, I learned more about his inspiring life, thoughts on history and politics, and integrative medical practice. His work exemplifies the integration of medicine and social practices.
Dr. David Levinson, another physician within the BPP (and one of the few formal white members), kindly showed me around his hometown and surrounding areas of Berkeley. David was only twenty when he went on the trip to China, and he was the other doctor that featured prominently in my thesis. Over a meal or while exploring the ruins of Albany Bulb, we discussed the role of medicine in society, and I learned of his extensive travels from Chiapas to El Salvador, the Vatican to the US-Mexico border. I also shadowed him at Street Level Health Project, a non-profit clinic that serves under and uninsured recent immigrants. Dr. Levinson, too, embodies the spirit of integrating medicine with social practices. Indeed, the first time I met him, he told me that medicine was “part and parcel of this broader commitment — and that was to transform society.”
Dr. Levinson showed me the beautiful and mysterious Albany Bulb as we talked about medicine, social change, life and everything in between! Here, we are in front of Mad Marc’s Castle.
After my interview, Doc Cohen showed me around her clinic.
One of the posters presented at ACTCM’s research soirée that captured my attention.
I interviewed Misha Cohen, OMD, L.Ac., the founder of Chicken Soup Chinese Medicine in San Francisco. She has been practicing Chinese medicine since the 1970s, where she was first exposed to acupuncture at the Lincoln Detox Center in the South Bronx in New York City. Run by the BPP and the Young Lords, two revolutionary groups, the Lincoln Detox Center offered acupuncture as an alternative to methadone for drug detoxification. I began to describe this little-known history in my thesis, and was delighted to connect with someone who partook in it.
I interviewed Emory Douglas, the former Minister of Culture for the BPP, who was also on the trip to China in 1972. It was an honor to hear about the intersection of art and activism, especially from one of the prominent figures in the influential Black Arts Movement.
I met with Kathleen Campbell, lawyer and wife of the late Dr. Richard Fine, at her home. Overlooking the Mission and with a view of San Francisco General, Kathleen told me her life with Dr. Fine, and how he spent his life working with underserved communities at the General Medicine Clinic. He, too, had connections with the BPP and was also an early supporter of the disease model of addiction. Dr. Fine passed away in 2015, and the clinic was renamed to the Richard H. Fine People’s Clinic.
Besides historical research, I also sought to understand the current status of integrative medicine in the United States. I met with Dr. David Spiegel, the director of Stanford University’s Integrative Medicine Center. Among the various insights I learned from Dr. Spiegel, I was most struck by the conversation we had about the economics of healthcare and its relation to integrative medicine.
I attended a research soirée at the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, where students and faculty presented on the latest research on Chinese medicine in the field. There is an increasing emphasis on the importance of rigorous research to back practices like acupuncture.
I also met with Dr. Maria Chao, the Associate Director of Research at the UC San Francisco’s Osher Center. She led a pilot integrative medicine program at the Tom Waddell Urban Health Clinic in the Tenderloin, which is an area of the city that has some of the highest rates of death related to opioid use.
I attended the Integrative Medicine for the Underserved Conference (IM4US) at the Santa Clara University at the end of August. Dr. Small was a panel speaker there, where he described his historical work and thoughts on the current healthcare system. At other presentations at the conference, I learned more about the use of integrative medicine within the context of the current opioid crisis, as practices like acupuncture are increasingly popular for pain management.