Qi by the Bay with Joe Quinn at Gabrielson Park, Downtown Sausalito

If Hippocrates met the Yellow Emperor, medicine as we know it, would never be the same. Imagine: a blending of classical medical traditions and wisdom from the East and West. The best of both worlds, courtesy of physicians and healers from centuries past.

In many ways this scenario is not a fantasy, but a growing reality -- a way of life and death. In China, Japan, Australia, the Soviet Union and Europe, doctors and nurses and other health practitioners have used for years a potent combination of Eastern and Western medical practices. Recently, medical and psychological models based on Eastern medicine have flourished in America, Canada and Europe. Many experts believe the day is near when a physician's technical and biomedical expertise, and an acupuncturist's needles and herbal remedies, will complement each other widely in clinics and hospitals around the world. It is time for the integration of Eastern and Western Medicine.

The East West Academy of Healing Arts in San Francisco is a step toward that new day, with a dynamic and pragmatic concept of health care and healing. The East West Academy is a non-profit corporation founded in 1973 by Dr. Effie Poy Yew Chow. Dr. Chow is an international health practitioner, acupuncturist, a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services advisor and a public health and psychiatric nurse with a Masters in Behavioral Sciences and a Ph.D. in Higher Education.

East West Academy offers a range of services:
- Sports Medicine & Rehabilitation for private clients
- Stress Management
- Corporate health, & and motivational programs
- Consultation & educational seminars
- Group training in the Chow system
- Intercultural medical & health services exchanges

East West Academy has treated many satisfied clients from all walks of life: business people, athletes, physicians, educators, homemakers, engineers, accountants, ballet dancers, opera singers, journalists, artists, secretaries, longshoremen, architects, attorneys, chemists, nurses and many more. Most of Dr. Chow's clients are referred to East West Academy by Western health care professionals. And she often directs her clients to Western physicians and medical facilities.

Over the past three decades, Dr. Chow has trained and spoken worldwide to more than 450,000 people. She has given seminars, lectures and motivational and training sessions to more than 350 corporations, hospitals, public agencies, educational institutions and professional agencies: Prudential Insurance, the American Public Health Assn., Westinghouse, Levi Strauss, Planned Parenthood, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Walter Reed Army Medical Center (D.C.), Columbia Lutheran Home (Seattle), the UC San Francisco School of Medicine, Georgetown University, Southern California (Kaiser) Permanente, the Chinese Hospital (San Francisco), the University of British Columbia, the Institute for Managerial and Professional Women (Portland, OR) and many others.

As health costs rise and medical care at times becomes impersonal East West Academy offers consumers and institutions a cost-effective, humane option in health promotion and treatment. An option that complements and works closely with Western approaches to find a common meeting ground, a practical dimension, for a new concept of health care and healing.

"The East began with the human instrument," notes Dr. Chow, "and with modernization is turning to the medical sciences. The West began with the medical sciences, and is turning to the human instrument. Perhaps the East and West will meet midway, so the best of their concepts can be synthesized to better serve humanity."

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