Doctor to
Healer
Ern
aW
“H
enu
s
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