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i, my name is Erna Wenus I’m an acupuncturist, I come from Germany where I worked as an MD(Medical Doctor) in anesthesiology and now I’m here in my little private practice as an acupuncturist. Acupuncture is just a label for holistic medicine that is based in traditional Chinese medicine. So it’s a quite folksy way of approaching healthcare and it works based on energy, so the primary idea about traditional Chinese medicine is to keep a balance of energy.” -Erna
By Nicolas Fricker
Wenus. While in Germany when she was working as an MD, Erna was amazed by Chinese doctors, visiting her University Hospital. They performed very successful acupuncture on outpatient in the pain clinic. This first encounter made her realize some of the powers of acupuncture. So she saw it as an agent for conventional medicine. After moving to the US, she decided to raise her daughter instead of working for long hours. Also, as an MD she could not stand being told what to prescribe by the insurances.
She quit her job and took college classes for acupuncture, while taking care of her daughter.
ic points. It is based on the classic Chinese concept of regulating the flow of bodily energy, or qi (pronounced chee), an idea unknown to Western science. Persuading the mainstream medical community to prescribe acupuncture will take more than showing that it works. There must also be explanations why it works that are compatible with the Western biomedical understanding of the body. When the Chinese explain acupuncture as unblocking a qi channel, it sounds like quackery. But view the procedure through the lens of Western science using Western terminology, and acupuncture can begin to sound as rational as acetaminophen.” -(Unknown, NYTimes).
Erna’s main life goal is to help heal her patients and also to incorporate acupuncture into Erna, now, plays an important conventional medicine practices. role in today’s society. Through Incorporating both together, will acupuncture, she has the ability bring out each others strengths. to help patients that can not be She believes in keeping a balance helped with conventional medicine in everything, like a dreidel. She or patients that suffer from maintains her patients’ balance damage caused by the powerful by healing them emotionally and drugs. How does it work? “The physically. 2,500-year-old Chinese therapy involves inserting extremely fine She has seen important reneedles into the body at specifsults with acupuncture
within the conventional medical field, when she met the Chinese Doctors in Germany. “I was working at the University Hospital where they had exchange doctors from China, who were very interested in our newest machinery. We always stuck them into the outpatient pain clinic because they had real good results with them doing acupuncture for pain management for outpatients.” - Erna Wenus. “For at least 2,000 years Chinese healers have used acupuncture to treat pain and other ailments. Now Western doctors want proof that it works.“ -(Tara Parker-Pope, NYTimes). For example, thyroid operations conducted under acupuncture anesthesia, can provide a more secure
surgery, because the patient is awake. The doctors make the patient talk to ensure that the thyroid nerve is not injured. “...one of my guiding principles is a quote from an old acupuncturist, Chinese acupuncturist. When he was asked what diseases he could heal, he said: I can heal every disease but I can’t heal every patient. So that is where I would like to have the
modern medicine and traditional medicine interphase a little bit more and you know, having energy as a principal...” -Erna Wenus. Everything has a balance, neither conventional nor traditional medicine are full on their own, if there is a balance between the two, the best of both techniques could be used for more efficient results . The metaphor of a dreidel represents that if two opposites points rotate together, the dreidel can spine on one point. If only one side of the dreidel spins, the dreidel will fall over and lay on two points and therefore not spin to its best ability. In combination with the acupuncture, Erna uses Chinese
helping them make life choices. She acts as a life mentor. “I
would say she is, i think she is extremely intelligent, intellectually and emotionally. I think she can see through people very very quickly. She’s has a good judge of character and she can very quickly put a finger on where the problem lies. So I think she has a real talent there. She’s very compassionate, I think she dedicates her life to her practice and her patients.” -Corinna Mori. Erna has two cats and loves animals. She sometimes performs acupuncture on her friend’s pets. On her free time, Erna enjoys sailing.
herbs as well as nutrition advices. For most of her patients, she invest herself personally in
“My personal life goal? I would like to go back with my acupuncture needles and do research in intensive care because
the biggest problems in intensive care where you know stuff like bowel movement…” - Erna Wenus. Bowel movement are a problem after surgery because they often shut off, causing constipation and doesn’t let the body absorb essential nutrients. Using needles on certain points stimulates the intestines. “..., or people going through difficult time with their brains, you know. Not waking up from after terrible accident or something like that and with all powerful medications that you have you cannot do everything…” -Erna Wenus. By performing acupuncture, doctors can maintain brain activity without strong drugs. “Why these mechanisms are triggered remains unexplained. But studying the acupuncture phenomenon could lead researchers to a better understanding of the mysteries of the pathways in human physiology. What they find, recast into modern concepts, the Chinese long ago named qi.“ - (Unknown, NY-
Times). Qi is energy and has to be balanced to maintain the body functioning. “...So I would like to close my personal life circle with going back to intensive care the most mechanized and and and scientifically routed part of of anesthesia and and see what how I could help with the needles how the needles would go, you know, make a program where you have a visiting acupuncturist as you have a visiting physical therapist.” -Erna Wenus