In Memoriam - Dr. Miriam Lee

Dr. Miriam Lee (Lee Chuan Djin) was my teacher and my friend. We first met in 1982, when I began working and observing in her clinic. To this day, I have never seen any more extraordinary Chinese medicine than what I witnessed there. Her patients loved her, though her methods were unusual and intense. They always knew that she would untiringly do her very best for them.

Dr. Lee opened her clinic every morning at 5:30am; by 6:00am her beds were full. All day, in fact, her beds were full, as was the waiting room. By 3:00pm she would close her shop and retire to her tiny little private office, where you could find her pouring over her books and studying hard for her patients. Miriam was a true pioneer in the field of acupuncture, always learning new skills and training herself in new techniques. Periodically, she would find a book discussing some form of treatment she had never done before, and she would pack her bags and travel halfway around the world to a remote village to bring back a special technique and teach it to her students. This is how we learned about many things, like moxa pots and bamboo cupping.

In 1987, I was lucky enough to go with her on one of these adventures. Eleven hours inland by train, we traveled from Shang Hai to He Fei in the An Hui Province. We had come all that way to study bleeding techniques with Dr. Wang Su-Jen, a third generation grandmother bleeder. Dr. Lee and Dr. Wang were almost exactly the same age and both were from Shan Dong. By the second day together they were fast friends. When we first arrived, the Communist party members would not let us see Dr. Wang, but Miriam argued with them for several days, and eventually they let us pass. This was Dr. Miriam Lee—one of the bravest, most determined and most dedicated acupuncturists who, I dare say, ever lived. Without her perseverance, this priceless technique and many others, including Master Tung’s famous points, might have been lost to the Western world.

Dr. Lee was a true activist, and most of the early acupuncture legislation in California was done with Dr. Lee spearheading it. She was hugely instrumental in creating our excellent scope of practice, in procuring our primary care physician status, MediCal and Worker’s Compensation coverage, as well as in achieving licensure of acupuncturists in the state of California. Without Dr. Miriam Lee, there would not be 10,000 acupuncturists in California today. California leads the nation tenfold in the education and licensing of acupuncturists due to the hard work and efforts of this amazingly dedicated individual.

It is with the utmost gratitude and respect, the deepest love and admiration, that I call this woman a giant in the field of acupuncture and an incredible role model, spiritually, politically, and medically. One of the greatest humanitarians who ever lived, Dr. Miriam Lee gave all of herself, and will never be forgotten.

May this, her last journey home, be her greatest fulfillment.