World-Famed Herbalist to be Director of New Botanical Healing Master's Degree Program in Maryland

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, August, 2001

One of the most respected practitioners of herbal medicine and complementary therapies in the world, Simon Y. Mills, will be director of the new Master's in Botanical Healing, one of the two new Master's Degree programs the Traditional Acupuncture Institute of Columbia, Maryland will inaugurate on a new campus, with classes beginning in fall, 2001.

This new herbal program will be the first accredited Master's Degree Program to train students for a booming $4.5 billion American herbal industry, and for the broader complementary medicine field as it moves into mainstream medicine. It will also be the first to ever integrate traditional Chinese herbs and so-called "Western herbs," the plants and substances indigenous to North America and Europe. There is already a non-degree herbal program on Chinese Herbs being taught at TAI, and it will be incorporated into the new Master's Degree program.

Mills, who in 1987 co-founded and until recently, headed the Complementary Medical Center at Exeter University in England, will head up the new program and represent it outside the institution, oversee the creation of curriculum, help recruit faculty, and also regularly teach in residence in Columbia, Maryland.

He is current Secretary of the European Scientific Cooperative on Phytotherapy (ESCOP), the major European body working to ensure quality, safety and efficacy for herbal medicinal products in collaboration with the European medicines regulators. He is Chairman of the British Herbal Medicine Association (the primary negotiating body with regulators in Britain.) He is author of several encyclopedias of herbal medicine, including The Dictionary of Modern Herbalism, and Out of the Earth: the essential book on herbal medicine. Most recently he co-authored Principles and Practices of Phytotherapy: modern herbal medicine, described in a foreword by Dr. James Duke, renowned plant medicine expert formerly with the United States Department of Agriculture as "an authoritatively fact-filled book, reliable and well-researched, and written by people who actually prescribe real herbal remedies to real people."

Mills has had his pre-eminence recognized by his recent appointment as Special Advisor to the House of Lords' Science and Technology Committee inquiry into complementary and alternative medicine, and a personal appointment by HRH the Prince of Wales to co-chair the Regulatory Working Group of his Foundation for Integrated Medicine in the United Kingdom.

A recent Prevention Magazine survey of adults nationally showed 44.6 million Americans using herbal medicines regularly, yet with enormous concern over issues of use, quality, information, training and cross-effects with mainstream pharmaceuticals and treatments. Mills is at Europe's cutting edge in assuring medicines-level quality standards for herbs. He aims to base the new Traditional Acupuncture Institute program on sound science and core craft disciplines to bring these age-old traditions clearly into the modern world. He is also amidst development of a groundbreaking medically sound and user-friendly international herbal medicine database for the Internet.

It is anticipated graduates of the new TAI program will be employed by natural product centers as advisors, teachers and staff; at pharmacies; by medical centers as clinicians, consultants and teachers; and in private practice as teachers, practitioners, information consultants and advisors.

"Simon has been involved with us since attending a conference on acupuncture in Columbia in 1981. We are excited that one of the world's leading authorities will now head a program which combines rigorous science with the holistic approach to health, and one that will be fully integrated with the healing tradition of our school's other programs," says TAI President and co-founder Robert M. Duggan. "We also think there will be great appeal in locating it midway between Washington, DC and Baltimore, near so many government, academic and private research and regulatory institutions."

TAI, the first nationally accredited acupuncture school, celebrates its 25th Anniversary this year. It has a broadbased mission of using acupuncture treatments and other programs to empower individual responsibility for health and wellness, with the results being both a healthier population and far less costly health care. Over 600 graduates from its three-year, fully accredited Master of Acupuncture Degree Program practice throughout the United States. The school's enrollment has doubled in the past five years.

TAI's continuing education and community wellness programs, many through the Institute's School of Philosophy of Healing In Action (SOPHIA), also serve a wide audience. TM also funds and operates the Penn North Community Health Center, offering acupuncture and integrated wellness programs for people recovering from addiction, which has treated over 1,500 clients in the past five years. Similar integrated treatment programs are offered in detention centers and clinics.