How is Building Bridges for TCM Different?
The electric energy field of Building Bridges for TCM draws our participants back year after year. For more than a decade, we have dedicated ourselves to building a loyal, multidisciplinary following that continues to grow. This innovative event is designed to support you, the integrative practitioner or health-seeker, and allow you to engage in an experience where real transformation is possible. We all feel the powerful connection to this body–mind–spirit healing tradition. From morning Taoist meridian stretches to healing sessions of Qigong Meridian Therapy or Lifeforce: Tao of Medical Qigong, to evening dialogues, you can engage with an extraordinary group of presenters and colleagues. Building Bridges for TCM is a journey that offers the unique tools to change lives and help transform others.
Goals and Objectives
Our Mission
Building Bridges for TCM seeks to continue to offer innovative, effective ways to expand health options and improve outcomes in the U.S. We aim to do this by educating CAM and integrative healthcare and medical practitioners in classical Chinese medicine’s Five Element framework on the role of consciousness, belief systems, emotions and organ function in creating and maintaining optimum health. We seek to offer participants wisdom, knowledge, information and techniques to develop personal protocols of physical movement, self-cultivation and self-care. This path allows them to experience the interrelationship between body–mind–spirit, to model health and orchestrate a healing environment for patients. We seek to present the authentic ancient philosophical principles and theories underlying traditional Chinese medicine and create an understanding of this holistic medical system that emerged several thousand years ago from a powerful spiritual practice.
Our ultimate mission is to broaden the contemporary understanding of health and wellness by introducing TCM’s innate concepts of self-empowerment, responsibility, self-care and prevention into the current paradigm of healing and recovery.
Conference Goals
- Develop a deep understanding of the theoretical, philosophical and spiritual framework within which the classical medical system of TCM operates.
- Offer today’s healthcare practitioners insight into TCM principles, theories, techniques and case studies, as well their correlation with principles of modern science.
- Raise awareness and increase integration of TCM in the U.S. by defining and explicating its body–mind–spirit approach.
- Introduce protocols of prevention, self-care and self-cultivation for ourselves and patients that encompass body–mind–spirit medicine.
- Study the connections between consciousness, body–mind–spirit medicine and good health.
Conference Learning Objectives
At the conclusion of this educational event, participants should be able to:
- Summarize the theoretical, philosophical and spiritual framework within which the ancient medical system of TCM operates.
- Compare the advantages of treating the whole person by restoring balance and strengthening the individual’s healing ability instead of focusing exclusively on illness or disease to improve patient care.
- Differentiate some of the positive contributions TCM could make to prevention within contemporary healthcare.
- Explain the purpose and value of self-cultivation in the practice of body–mind–spirit medicine.
- Demonstrate an ability to hold an informed discussion with patients about TCM as a complementary therapy for certain health conditions discussed at this event.
Building Bridges of Integration for TCM has been convened for 13 years by Traditional Chinese Medicine World Foundation. We are grateful to our conference co-chairs and our organizing committee for their guidance.
Conference Co-Chairs
Frances L. Brisbane, PhD
Vice President, Health Sciences Work Force Diversity, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY
Nan Lu, OMD, Founding Director and President
Traditional Chinese Medicine World Foundation
New York, New York
Organizing Committee
Xiu-Min Li, MD, MS (Committee Chair)
Professor, Pediatrics, Allergies and Immunology
Mount Sinai School of Medicine
New York, NY
Stephen Cowan, MD, FAAP, CAc
The Westchester Center for Holistic Families, Mt Kisco, NY
Lixin Huang, MS, President
American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine
San Francisco, CA
Lixing Lao, PhD, MB
Endowed Professor in Integrative Medicine
Director, School of Chinese Medicine
The University of Hong Kong
Michael Taromina, Esq.
