Exceptional Clinical Training

Learn by Doing.

Education through patient Care

Clinical training is a critical component of every program at the Seattle Institute of East Asian Medicine. The founders of the school believe that effective clinicians are best trained through a combination of rigorous academic work placed firmly in the context of patient care. To achieve this goal, we have developed multiple clinical opportunities for our students. In each setting, students work with practitioners who have a minimum of ten years of clinical experience.

Through SIEAM's own teaching clinic and through external sites, students see a significant number of patients from a variety of backgrounds, ages, and medical complaints. Over the course of the clinical training, student interns develop into effective clinicians.

Acupuncture

Acupuncture practice has varied throughout history and today, the methods of engagement are no less diverse. 

SIEAM’s faculty represents expertise in varied approaches to assessment and treatment. Students learn diverse methods of palpation assessment, acupuncture techniques, and other related interventions. Through classroom and clinical experiences with our experienced faculty, students create a rich“toolbox” of approaches to treatment. Having knowledge and clinical experience using these varied techniques means that our graduates are able to adjust techniques to the needs of the patients and address difficult-to-treat concerns with flexibility. The development of these skills may be one of the reasons why so many of our graduates remain in active clinical practice, year after year.

Bodywork

The SIEAM curriculum places an emphasis on developing clinical skills in several styles of Asian bodywork, including Tui Na and Shiatsu.  During each trimester of the first year of the program, students receive classroom instruction while simultaneously participating in a Bodywork Internship in the SIEAM clinic.  This allows students to develop expertise in these areas and to gain valuable clinical exposure by immediately applying what they are learning to patient care under the supervision of an experienced faculty member.  

Herbal Medicine

Students begin studying Chinese herbal medicine as soon as they enter our program. In their first year, students are introduced to herbs and formulas in their Chinese herbal medicine classes. During their second year, they deepen learning with emphasis on topics such as gynecology, traumatology, and gastroenterology.  Students participate in weekly clinical herbal preceptorships, observing experienced herbalists on SIEAM’s faculty as they prescribe herbal formulas to patients in the clinic. Students will get hands-on experience working in our Herbal Dispensary, by preparing and compounding formulas, creating topicals and liniments, and much more.

SIEAM students will also learn about herbs in a three-year study of Chinese Medical Language & Classics. Students begin in the first year, developing basic vocabulary and reading short selections from the medical Classics. Starting in the second year of the program, students work with Chinese-language materials, classical and modern, to enhance their understanding of herbal medicine theory and its clinical application.  Accessing, translating and discussing information obtained from these texts provides the student with a rich understanding of diagnostic nuances and treatment strategies not commonly found in the English language literature.  

Students completing the Doctorate program will have an opportunity to further develop these skills in relation to a chosen topic relevant to their clinical interests.  

Our Teaching Clinic

At the teaching clinic of the Seattle Institute of East Asian Medicine, we provide high-quality, comprehensive clinical care tailored to an individual patient’s needs. Our clinical faculty, each having over 10 years of experience providing patient care, include well-known scholars, specialized clinicians, and researchers. Our students are trained in small class settings and complete extensive clinical training in a variety of approaches and techniques used in East Asian Medicine (EAM).

Patients are able to schedule appointments with either a faculty member or a student intern. Our teaching clinics have a rotating schedule that changes each trimester, but always include Acupuncture & Herbal Medicine, Tuina Bodywork, and Faculty Preceptorships. The clinic operates in Seattle at our main campus in Georgetown.