The Founders of this College, Lisa and Paul Lin, sought to create an educational institution qualitatively superior to others in the Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine field. The Lins were particularly dissatisfied with the reductionist approach entailed by subsuming the rich traditions and scholarship of the discipline to a homogenized and Westernized “Oriental Medicine,” and were concerned about the quality of practitioners trained in this country.
Decades of professional experience as practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine have made the Founders mindful of the greater scrutiny to which their profession, as a relative newcomer to the West, is exposed, and they have been tireless in their quest for ever-higher standards of professionalism and education for practitioners. Wishing, therefore, to improve the quality of training and education of future practitioners, and wishing further to ensure that the discipline be regarded as a serious profession, the Founders patterned this institution after the successful model
The Founders of this College, Lisa and Paul Lin, sought to create an educational institution qualitatively superior to others in the Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine field. The Lins were particularly dissatisfied with the reductionist approach entailed by subsuming the rich traditions and scholarship of the discipline to a homogenized and Westernized “Oriental Medicine,” and were concerned about the quality of practitioners trained in this country.
Decades of professional experience as practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine have made the Founders mindful of the greater scrutiny to which their profession, as a relative newcomer to the West, is exposed, and they have been tireless in their quest for ever-higher standards of professionalism and education for practitioners. Wishing, therefore, to improve the quality of training and education of future practitioners, and wishing further to ensure that the discipline be regarded as a serious profession, the Founders patterned this institution after the successful model for similar schools in China.
As a consequence, the College’s curriculum and program of study is distinguished by its emphasis on the study of the canonical texts of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and by its curricular focus on the integrated use of both acupuncture and traditional Chinese herbs. The curriculum was, at the time of its adoption, a revolutionary translation of the Chinese model into a Western context.
The Founders’ dedication to the advancement of the study of Traditional Chinese Medicine was not limited, however, to the mere adoption of a Chinese-style curriculum. The Lins were immediately confronted with the lack of adequate English-language versions of certain canonical texts, and answered this deficiency, not by the simple expedient of excluding these materials from their curriculum, but rather by producing and publishing their own original translations of these works. In 1993, the Lins released The Essentials of Dr. Zhang Zhoonjing and A Professional Guide to Traditional Chinese Internal Medicine, helping to introduce the theories, principles, and foundations of Traditional Chinese Medicine to a broader Western audience.
This was in the same year as the successful culmination of their educational and advocacy efforts on behalf of acupuncture in the state of Texas. In recognition of her pioneering role in acupuncture and in acupuncture education, Lisa Lin was appointed by then-Governor Ann Richards to Chair the first Texas State Board of Acupuncture Examiners’ Education Committee.
Since its founding, the Texas College of Traditional Chinese Medicine has been Texas’ premiere educational institute for practitioners of acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine. The College has been at the forefront of the profession of acupuncture in the state, actively participating in the development of acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine as both a serious academic discipline and as a profession fully capable of integration into the modern healthcare system.
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