Dr. Gene Bruno: The beginning of the acupuncture profession in the United States (1969–1979) — acupuncture, medical acupuncture and animal acupuncture

Dr. Gene Bruno: The beginning of the acupuncture profession in the United States (1969–1979) — acupuncture, medical acupuncture and animal acupuncture.  | PDF |

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Dr. Gene Bruno: The beginning of the acupuncture profession in the United States (1969–1979) — acupuncture, medical acupuncture and animal acupuncture

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	Dr. Gene Bruno: The beginning of the acupuncture profession in the United States (1969–1979) — acupuncture, medical acupuncture and animal acupuncture  | PDF | http://www.jcimjournal.com/jim/ June 23, 2015 | Arthur Yin Fan, Sarah Faggert (doi: 10.1016/S2095-4964(15)60186-8)  | PDF |

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Gene Bruno

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Bruno

 Gene Bruno, OMD, LAc, FNAAOM (born April 13, 1948, Los Angeles) is an American acupuncturist^[1][2] and doctor of Oriental Medicine.^[3] In 1974 Bruno helped establish the first school of acupuncture (New England School of Acupuncture) in the United States, and the second school (California Acupuncture College) in 1975.^[4]

Contents [hide] 1 Biography 2 Research focus 3 Other 4 Awards 5 Also see 6 References 7 External links 8 Categories

[edit]Biography

Bruno attended U.C.L.A.^[5] and became a staff acupuncturist for the National Acupuncture Association (NAA) located in Westwood, California. As an NAA acupuncturist he participated in the Acupuncture Pain Clinic at UCLA medical school in 1972.

In 1971, Bruno accepted an appointment as one of the Directors of the NAA’s Veterinary Acupuncture Research Project. He and his associate, Dr. John Ottaviano, introduced veterinary acupuncture into the United States for the first time.

The result of this work of the NAA’s veterinary research team led to the training of veterinarians in acupuncture by Drs. Bruno and Ottaviano. This in turn led to the establishment of the International Veterinary Acupuncture Association (IVAS), in 1974.^[6]

Dr. Bruno was the co-founder of the Massachusetts Acupuncture Association in 1974, and the co-founder of the Oregon Acupuncture Association in 1978 with Dr. Wei Tak Cheung. He founded the Trudy McAlister Fund in 2007, a charitable scholarship foundation.^[7]

[edit]Research focus

In addition to the extensive research on developing veterinary acupuncture, Bruno has done research at Harvard Medical School and at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, looking into the practical applications of acupuncture in the treatment of pain.^[8] Dr. Bruno also developed a treatment protocol for using micro-current stimulation to treat macular degeneration.^[9]

[edit]Other

Bruno has served on numerous boards including the Acupuncture Committees of the Board of Medicine of Oregon and Board of Medicine of Washington.^[10] He was served as president of the [www.aaom.org American Association of Oriental Medicine (AAAOM)].^[11]

In 2007, Dr. Bruno was elected to the Executive Board of the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies (WFCMS).^[12] He currently serves as the President of the Trudy McAlister Foundation,^[13][14] which awards scholarships to students of acupuncture and Oriental medicine.^[13]

[edit]Awards

• Pioneers and Leaders Award October – 2007 – Presented by American Association of Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine ^[15]
• Founders of the Profession Lifetime Achievement Award – October 2006 – Presented by American Association of Oriental Medicine^[16]
• Special Award for Advancing Oriental Medicine in the State of Oregon – October 1993 – Presented by the Oregon Acupuncture Association
• Special Merit Award for the Founding of Veterinary Acupuncture in the US – July 1975 – Presented by the National Acupuncture Association

[edit]Also see

• James Tin Yau So

[edit]References

1. ^ http://www.acupuncturetoday.com/mpacms/at/article.php?id=28482
2. ^ http://www.aaaomonline.org/default.asp?pagenumber=4010
3. ^ http://www.aaaomonline.org/default.asp?pagenumber=4010
4. ^ http://www.college-contact.com/acupuncture-schools
5. ^ http://www.uclalumni.net/
6. ^ www.ivas.org
7. ^ www.trudymcalisterfoundation.org
8. ^ http://www.aaaomonline.info/aom_in_us.pdf
9. ^ http://acudoctor.com/
10. ^ http://www.oregon.gov/OMB/
11. ^ http://www.aaaomonline.org/
12. ^ “Acupuncture Today is a leading provider of acupuncture news, info and research information in the world”. Acupuncturetoday.com. Retrieved 2009-09-20.
13. ^ ^a b “New Scholarship Fund for AOM Students”. Acupuncturetoday.com. 2009-07-28. Retrieved 2009-09-20.
14. ^ http://www.trudymcalisterfoundation.org
15. ^ http://www.aaaomonline.info/docs/pioneers_and_leaders_vol1.pdf
16. ^ http://www.aaaomonline.info/docs/pioneers_and_leaders_vol1.pdf

[edit]External links

• http://ivas.org
• http://aaaomonline.com
• http://www.wfcms.org/english/

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Oregon State Acupuncture history, By Gene Bruno

For Oregon Acupuncturists

http://oaaom.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/For-Oregon-Acupuncturists-Gene-Bruno-March-2009.pdf

I came to Oregon in 1975, and passed the acupuncture licensing exam given by the Board of Medical Examiner’s Acupuncture Committee. At that time, only Oregon and Nevada had licensing laws allowing acupuncturists to practice who were not medical doctors.

I then moved to Oregon in late 1976 and began practicing in Portland. Not knowing any better, I left an extremely lucrative human and veterinary practice in California, because I wanted raise my children in Oregon. It just seemed to me to be a much better place for children to grow up.

You might imagine that things were a bit different in those days. We could only treat patients that were referred to us by an M.D. Also, the Medical Board had a regulation at the time that restricted those referrals. The referrals could only come from  “in-house” MD who was also approved by the Board of Medicine, and assigned to a specific acupuncturist.

So patients could not come to us if referred by their own doctor.

In 1978 I presented an argument to the Board of Medicine for changing this restriction and asked that acupuncturists be able to accept patients referred from any Oregon licensed MD.

The BME changed their regulation.

At the time there were 6 other practitioners (all Chinese) and myself (the white guy) in Oregon. It was tough then. If you think it is “hard” for you now, you don’t really understand “difficult.” You think we are in an economic depression now, this was during the great Carter Administration when interest rates were 17% to 24%! No insurance coverage at all — only cash patients. Most people didn’t have extra money for alternative care of any kind. Plus, this was back in the beginning when almost no one knew about  acupuncture and its benefits.

Then one day in early 1979, while I was probably daydreaming about salmonfishing, Dr.WaiTak Cheung comes storming into my office and says, with his thick accent, “OK Gene, now we get busy…we need to get the law changed.” At this time the OAA existed, but in name only,and the dues were spent on several very nice Chinese dinners each year. They never undertook any legislative projects, nor did they communicate with the Board of Medical Examiners. Dr. Cheung explained to me that since 3 of the other 4 Chinese Doctors had either left town or died, and since he was in now in charge of the OAA, it was time to make the OAA a real functioning organization. I hadn’t seen Dr. Cheung in 8 or 9 months, but I knew that he and the others heard about my results in getting the Board of Medicine to get rid of the old supervision by “one MD rule.” And at my one and only attendance at the 1977 OAA Dinner For Elderly Chinese Practitioners and One White Guy, I spent a long time trying to convince the members to be active in legislative issues and Board of Medicine oversight issues. They seemed completely uninterested at the time, but it turns out that Dr. Cheung was the exception.

So together, he and I set out [alone] to rid ourselves of the MD referral requirement that was in the original legislation. It took a year and a half, but it got done. By 1980-81MalvinFinklestein and Eric Stephens and Jerry Senogles had arrived in Oregon. So I wasn’t the lone white guy anymore.

In just a few years, a small group of about 5 of us, with very, very, very limited funds, managed to get rid of the referral requirement, and to write and get passed the first insurance parity law in the U.S. And on top of this, the naturopaths were trying each year to pass legislation giving them the power to do acupuncture with little or no training. So we had to fight their lobbying efforts. Lucky for us, no one ever told us how naïve we were to try and do all this in four years with no manpower and almost no money. I don’t believe that any one of us thought we could do it alone. Somehow, even just two or three of us together gave us the courage to try. With 5 or 6 of us….well, we felt invincible.

So…this a very brief summary of a part of my experience in the early, beginning years of our profession here in Oregon. Some of you may be aware that in most states, insurance companies do NOT pay for acupuncture at all. You are probably also aware that most states do not have herbal medicine as a part of their scope of practice.

And I am sure you are all aware that in over 20 other states Chiropractors can legally do acupuncture ….as long as they have the 50 to 200 of required ‘training.’

Thank you for taking a few minutes to let me reminisce and ramble –on about the good old days. And I want to wish you the best for your future, as individual practitioners and as a state organization.

An old friend of mine used to always say, “It’s good to have a plan for the future.”

The first time I heard him say that, I said to him, “You’re such an idiot. How can you plan for the unknown?”

He just smiled and replied, “That’s the easy part. You simply visualize the future you want.

It’s simple.”

I said, “Simple? You’re nuts. How can it be simple?”

He said, “Remember that photo you showed me of that small sailboat you built?”

I answered, “Yes.”

He continued, “So you simply begin to form a picture of your next project, or your next goal, or your entire next year, and you hold it before your minds eye as you would the picture of the sailboat.”

I was quiet for a minute or two, and then asked, ”So if that’s the easy part, wise guy, what’s the hard part?”

He sat up, his eyes looked directly into mine and then he said, “Actually doing it.” I looked at him for a long time. I actually had the makings of a plan that I hadn’t told him about, and I wasn’t sure how to make it work. I finally said, “I have a plan, but it’s too big for me to do alone right now!

He started laughing and laughing, and then finally became calmer, and he smiled and said,

“Who said anything about doing it all alone?”

So, what’s your plan for the future? Are you headed there alone?

by Gene Bruno, OMD, LAc

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Gene Bruno, Who is him?

Gene Bruno

http://wikibin.org/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=19501

Gene Bruno, OMD, LAc, FNAAOM, was a staff acupuncturist of the National Acupuncture Association’s research
team. Acupuncture arrived on the scene in the United States in the early 1970’s, shortly after information about
this medicine became available to the general public. James Reston’s surgery in China with the use of
acupuncture was the notable event that brought acupuncture to the public’s attention. Te National Acupuncture
Associaion, located in Westwood, California, was instrumental in training acupuncturists and research in acupuncture.
While acupuncture had been a part of the Chinese communities in the US, most of the public were uninformed of its
existence and its use in treating diseases. The National Acupuncture Association (NAA) was the first national
association to introduce acupuncture into the United States in the late 1960’s. One of the first major projects of
the NAA was to establish an Acupuncture Pain Clinic at UCLA medical school in 1972. The NAA also began several
research projects and sponsored the first medical seminars on acupuncture.
In 2007, the American Association of Oriental Medicine (AAOM) recognized this seminal work by NAA acupuncturists by
awarding its first Founders of the Profession Lifetime Achievement Awards, and creating the Pioneers Honor Roll. Dr.
Gene Bruno and Dr. William Prensky were awarded the first “Pioneers of the Field Lifetime Achievement Awards.
Dr. Steven Rosenblatt, Dr. James Tin Yau So and Dr. Ju Gim Shek were added to the Founders Honor Roll.
From 1971 until 1974, Dr. Bruno was part of the NAA’s two-man team that introduced veterinary acupuncture into the
United States for the first time. As a part of the first national organization to introduce acupuncture to western medicine
and the public in the US, Dr. Gene Bruno was one of the pioneers in this field in the US. From 1972 to 1974 he worked
at the UCLA Acupuncture Pain Clinic. From 1971 until 1974, Dr. Bruno was part of the NAA’s two-man team that
introduced veterinary acupuncture into the United States for the first time.

As one of the directors of the research team that introduced veterinary acupuncture into the United States, Dr. Bruno and
Dr. John Ottaviano were the only two practitioners who were allowed to treat animals in California in the 1970s who were
not licensed in veterinary medicine. The result of this work of the NAA’s veterinary research team led to the trainging of
veterinarians and to the establishment of the International Veterinary Acupuncture Association (IVAS) in 1974. The IVAS
is international and now has members in many countries including Italy. The IVAS is a non-profit educational organization.
As a practitioner of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine for nearly 40 years, Dr. Bruno has received many awards. In
2006, the American Association of Oriental Medicine (AAOM) recognized his achievements in the field of Acupuncture
and Oriental Medicine in the US by presenting him with the first Founders of the Profession Lifetime Achievement Award.
In 2007, Dr. Bruno was elected to the Executive Board of the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies (WFCMS).
This is the largest group of professional acupuncture and Oriental medicine societies in the world. As a member of
the Executive Board of the WFCMS, Dr. Bruno represents the American Association of Acupuncture and Oriental
Medicine (AAAOM), which is the largest and oldest national acupuncture organization in the United States.
Awards
Pioneers and Leaders Award October 2007
:Presented by American Association of Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine
Founders of the Profession Lifetime Achievement Award October 2006
:Presented by American Association of Oriental Medicine
Special Award for Advancing Oriental Medicine in the State of Oregon October 1993
:Presented by the Oregon Acupuncture Association
Special Merit Award for Contributions that led to the Founding of
Veterinary Acupuncture in the US July 1975
:Presented by the National Acupuncture Association
Personal life
Gene Bruno (born April 13, 1948) grew up in the West Los Angles area, spent a year in Boston, and has lived with his

wife. He still has a medical office in Salem, Oregon.

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