MICHAEL POTTER
ACUPUNCTURE & CHINESE HERBAL MEDICINE
Bank Lane Practice, Totnes & Totnes Natural Health Centre
ABOUT ME
A doctor like anyone else who has to deal with human beings, each of them unique, cannot be a scientist; (s)he is either, like the surgeon, a craftsman, or, like the physician and the psychologist, an artist. This means that in order to be a good doctor a (wo)man must also have a good character, that is to say, what ever weaknesses and foibles (s)he may have, (s)he must love his/her fellow human beings in the concrete and desire their good before his/her own.
W.H. Auden
SO FAR, the study and practice of East Asian Medicine (EAM) has taken 45 years of my life, and I have been in practice since 1981. I learned was Five Element acupuncture at the College of Traditional Chinese Acupuncture in Leamington Spa and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) acupuncture with Giovanni Maciocia.
The style I now practice is Japanese Meridian Therapy, which is rooted in the medical classics of the Han Dynasty. Meridian Therapy is noted for its lightness of touch and for the use of moxibustion therapy.
In 1983 I took a teaching post and spent two years in the Peoples' Republic of China, teaching English in a provincial university in Manchuria. This enabled me to further study acupuncture and, introduced me to Chinese Herbal Medicine & Qigong, which I subsequently studied, in depth with Master Tihn Thong Nguyen from Vietnam.
During the 1990s, prior to relocating to Devon, I worked on the NHS, practicing acupuncture at the Complementary Medicine Centre based in Lewisham Hospital, South East London, which provided a multibed referral service for GPs in Lambeth Southwark Health Authority (now NHS South East London). I also practiced in three GP Fund Holding surgeries in South East London
I am on the Accreditation Committees of the British Acupuncture Accreditation Board (BAAB) and the European Herbal and Traditional Practitioners Association (EHTPA), which oversee standards of education within acupuncture and herbal medicine communities. I teach on the MSc Global Nutrition program at the University of Westminster, London. I run my private practice in Totnes.