Speakers

IICMC Conference Founders

The Fertile Life™ Method has been built around Chinese Medicine, the latest clinical research and the teams 100+ years of combined experience of working with people trying to conceive.

It provides both couples and individuals who have been experiencing primary and secondary infertility, whether through IVF or trying to conceive naturally, with a comprehensive program of natural treatment options to conceive and achieve a successful pregnancy.

Her passion for Women’s Health and a culmination of studying complimentary medicine over the past 27 years, give Kirsten a unique understanding of the human body and spirit. Kirsten has treated thousands & thousands of people and helped them conceive from the easy case to the most difficult cases, where she was their last chance. 

She has been practicing TCM for 23 years and has solely focused on treatment of Reproductive and Women’s health conditions such as infertility (natural and IVF), pregnancy, pre-birth, labour and postnatal care for the past 15 years. This has allowed her to become one of Australia’s leading Chinese Medicine experts in the field of fertility.

Kirsten strives to integrate traditional and complementary care in order to effectively improve and maintain her patients' life-long health. Her expertise provides patients with comprehensive treatments to address the needs of individuals and couples suffering from infertility and subfertility.

Kirsten has built a strong reputation on the Mornington Peninsula in gynecology and fertility providing optimal patient care pre and post natally alongside midwives, gynecologists and obstetricians.

Speakers for IICMC 2025

His Special Achievements and Interests include:

• Investigating and developing revolutionary IVF technologies during a 33 year association with Monash IVF
• Pioneering advanced laparoscopic surgery for women
• Conducting research into the causes of infertility and recurrent miscarriages
• Reducing pain and infertility in endometriosis patients through state of the art medical and surgical treatment
• Providing advanced medical and surgical care to women with polycystic ovarian disease
• Investigating and managing the role of the immune system in infertility
• Conducting research into the role of stem cells in the treatment of infertility 
• Helping all couples experience the joy of becoming parents.

Beyond her clinical work, Dr. Bartrop is a dynamic speaker and educator, engaging with diverse audiences through workshops, seminars, and community initiatives. Her mission is to elevate awareness and understanding of integrative approaches to women's health, bridging the gap between ancient wisdom and modern science. She is also a Co-Director of IIHMCO – International Integrative Maternity Health Series  – where she has spoken about pregnancy numerous times on the benefits of Acupuncture, and Chinese herbal medicine during pregnancy and the post-natal term.

Julia  is also an admin for the Fit For 2 group – which advocates for strong health and education during pregnancy – providing support and assistance to these women. Alongside Anita Golob – Julia and Anita have run birth preparation workshops – combining Chinese Medicine with 20 years of midwifery experience to provide support and empowerment and a focus on support during pregnancy, self advocation during labor and a village for raising children.

With a commitment to ongoing professional development, Julia integrates evidence-based practices into her personalized care. Her patients benefit from her compassionate guidance and comprehensive treatment plans tailored to each individual's needs.

Solomon has worked with individuals, couples and families both in the public and private sector, guiding them through times of situational stress/anxiety through to severe crisis and long-term depression through his work at https://www.themindninja.com.au>

Solomon is particularly passionate about the importance of self care in practice, especially in the health and wellness space. He believes in the cultivation of self-care as the recipe for longevity and success in clinical practice

For 17 years, Claudia was Preceptor and Director of the Acupuncture Program at Lutheran Medical Center (now NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn), a 466-bed community hospital in Brooklyn, NY.  Through the program, she treated inpatients in the Neurological/Orthopedic Rehabilitation and Labor and Delivery units as well as pain and cancer patients throughout the hospital, training over 300 acupuncture students and practitioners in the provision of evidence-informed inpatient acupuncture care. 

Claudia has been s a lecturer or clinical instructor at numerous Master's and Doctoral level acupuncture programs throughout the US as well as Europe and the UK. She has published research in acupuncture during Labor and Delivery and acupuncture research methods, and completed her PhD on acupuncture during stroke rehabilitation under Volker Scheid at the University of Westminster in London.  She is a peer reviewer and Editorial Board member of multiple journals, a Board Member of the Society for Acupuncture Research, and a Commissioner on the Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine.

Claudia currently practices at White Pine Healing Arts in Amherst, MA, and in her nearby home office. She specializes in acupuncture, bodywork, movement and lifestyle medicine to address disorders of the central nervous system such as stroke and Parkinson’s disease.

For many years she taught Advanced Clinical Observation and was a senior clinic supervisor at her alma mater: the school of acupuncture that was founded by Master Yuen in 1997 in Manhattan. She is one of fewer than 200 people who graduated from that school in the thirteen years it was open.Throughout the 3000 hour course she received direct transmissions from Master Yuen in all the channels of acupuncture, pulse diagnosis, Chinese philosophy, history, and clinical skills. She then traveled extensively for many years, following her teacher in order to deepen her study.

Currently, Ann divides her time between teaching both internationally and domestically, treating her patients who come from all over the world to work through chronic degenerative illnesses, and teaching her six-month Mentorship Program for acupuncturists and remote healers wanting to deepen their understanding and clinical skills in energetic medicine. The mentorship program is the most comprehensive training in Classical Chinese Medicine available, teaching in-depth topics such as mindset and self-cultivation, bedside manner, pulse diagnosis, tongue diagnosis, the Sinew, Luo, Divergent and Eight Extraordinary Channels. 

For exclusive bite-sized lessons and teaching, you can follow Ann on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/anncecilsterman/, or learn more about her yearly mentorship program at https://anncecilsterman.com/mp25/.

BONUS Speakers for IICMC 2023
recorded presentations

Amy has presented widely on acupuncture and integrative practices in hospitals, IVF clinics and at conferences and universities. In 2018 Amy with A/Professor Gavin Sacks created The Alexandria Multidisciplinary Education Series a lecture series about IVF, Fertility and Women’s health conditions. This series aimed to stimulate inter-professional education, collaboration, and the cross pollination of ideas between healthcare practitioners from a range of backgrounds and disciplines. Amy also created 2022 a comprehensive mentorship program for budding practitioners, a comprehensive intensive six months Integrative Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture training program including modules on IVF support, Natural fertility, women’s health conditions, male fertility, and Pregnancy care.

 Amy’s research includes a Masters of Global health that focused on the Integrative Medical (IM) practices of GPs, an AIMA led project on interprofessional communication, and a NICM Health Institute led research project that investigated the IM practice and education needs of Australian GPs. In addition, Amy has been involved in several clinical trials investigating the use of Acupuncture for IVF, PCOS and Endometriosis.

 Amy proud to lead a network of clinic that are dedicated to providing integrative approach   and team based to care for patients, in which patients can feel comfortable that their traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners will communicate and coordinate   their care with other healthcare providers in their team to ensure their care plan is transparent, clear,  safe and comprehensive. 

TOPIC - Igniting an Integrative approach for IVF

Gain the confidence to ignite integrative practice which features an evidence base practice, good interprofessional communication, and a coordinated and collaborative team approach  in which all the appropriate therapeutic approaches, healthcare professionals and disciplines can be utilised to achieve optimal health and healing. 

Integrative Medicine (IM) is defined as “The practice of medicine that reaffirms the importance of the relationship between practitioner and patient, focuses on the whole person, is informed by evidence, and makes use of all appropriate therapeutic approaches, healthcare professionals and disciplines to achieve optimal health and healing.”

What are the specific ingredients needed in TCM practice to ignite and fuel an Integrative Medical approach to IVF care? This talk addresses the practical aspects of integrative approach such as:  The evidence surrounding the use of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture in IVF care, the importance of relationship of patient and health care providers and the key aspects in achieving a patient centered approach and establishing a multi-disciplinary and Integrative approach to care such as good interprofessional communication and treatment plans,  patient centered care,  and a coordinated and collaborative team approach. 

 In researching how to help couples have healthy babies, Brandon developed an interest in fetal development and pediatrics. He accepted a position at Children's Hospital of Los Angeles as Clinical Supervisor and Deputy Director of the acupuncture program. Brandon currently devotes one day per week to treating under-served children at Children's Hospital. He also supervises Master and Doctoral level students working in the Pain, Rheumatology and Endocrinology departments alongside some of the top pediatricians in the country.

In addition to working at CHLA, Brandon is also on faculty at UCLA Medical School where he teaches third year medical students. Brandon also has a private practice in Los Angeles, CA. When not working, Brandon can be found hanging out with his daughter, fiddling with electronics, reading, hiking or sleeping.

She has happily put down the stresses of running a clinic filled with angsty patients, and is now fully focussed on writing and lecturing. As well, she enjoys working as a birth doula and has recently begun to train as a death doula; seeing them in, seeing them out. She is particularly grateful to be part of these essential life experiences.

Jani began her studies in 1995 at the Worsley College of Traditional Acupuncture. She wasraised in the 5 Element teachings, which has evolved and expanded to fully embrace the Channel Theories of Classical Acupuncture.

Her practice and teaching is fundamentally rooted in the Heart, and is always, first and foremost concerned with how we can bring peace and balance to everybody’s heart - patients, students, colleagues, friends and family.

https://www.janiwittaker.com/chinese-medicine-cv.html

Put On Your ‘White Coat’

Staying Resilient Whilst Balancing a Demanding Clientele.

Having a Fertility and Obstetrics practice pretty much comes with a guarantee that you will be dealing with a highly stressed patient base.

Not conceiving is something that touches the very core of our most existential reckoning in our connection to the meaning of life - the drive to procreate that is beyond all will, all cognisance. When we are unable to conceive this eats at our very deepest sense of purpose and hollows out our confidence in who we are.

Fertility-angst is a razor wire of hope vying against the destabilising incapacity to trust. It messes with our heads, and our hearts, and the toll resonates in every atom of our being. And when a hard-won pregnancy is achieved it often comes with this deeply embedded inability to trust, which leads to an unsettled pregnancy that becomes - not the anticipated time of joy - but rather a held-breath tiptoe through a minefield of doubt and fear. And exhausted women struggle to birth, and struggle to recover, and so very often this longed-for child can feel like an enormous burden of unexpected trials.

Not every fertility patient, not every pregnancy, but as Chinese medicine physicians we are all too often the port of call for this type of anxious patient, and we’ll usually have on our books the more stressed kind of clients (did I say freaked out?).

This lecture is all about understanding the self-care we can bring to our own practice that will help to shield us from the way a cohort of needy clients can drain our own energies and reserves.

We will look at the tools and strategies that can give us a strong immunity to the angst, stress and woe, giving a wide-open space for our compassion to be fully active without taxing us.  

Drawing on sources from across the medical spectrums, and especially in light of the recent pandemic - and the flourishing of the discussions around burnout - this lecture is designed to help us find safe ways to give with open hearts as we simultaneously protect ourselves.

Connecting with her patients is an important part of her practice and she places a great emphasis on arming them with the tools to change habits in order to aid the medicine. She believes in the importance of understanding the medical system that her patients move through to best support their fertility, pregnancy and gynaecological health.

She will continue to badger the Chinese medicine community to hang out for picnics and to learn from one another in both an organised and also a casual fashion whenever she can. 

The Doctor Grieves too’

Ssupporting your patients & yourself through loss

The topic of Caz’s presentation was nowhere near her mind until April this year when her daughter Jean tragically died at birth. As Caz wrestled with the grief and shock in those early days and weeks, she knew that she would be out and teaching, guiding others around grief as soon as she was ready. As the journey continued, she realised how many experienced practitioners from every field still feel uncertain that they are providing the best care possible for their grieving patients. 

Not only this, she witnessed the burden of grief that they themselves bear, bringing to mind the first two principles of acupuncture practice from the Nei Jing Su Wen,

“The first is: regulate the spirit.
The second is: know how to nourish the body” (Unschuld).

Please be ready for very frank anecdotal and systematised information in this talk regarding miscarriage, infant loss and grief