In collaboration with the University of California, Los Angeles, Center for East West Medicine, OO has been charting a new course and direction in bringing the stories and the practice of integrative east-west medicine to the American audience on three different platforms – a web portal, www.ExploreIM.UCLA.edu; a feature length documentary, Staying Well, and Staying Well, the three-part television broadcast.

OO and UCLA’s collaboration on the groundbreaking Visual History Project of the pioneers of integrative medicine began in 2005.  The history of the genesis of integrative east-west medicine in China reaches back to its colorful roots in the 1950’s.  Recognizing that Traditional Chinese Medicine or TCM, is a national treasure, Chairman Mao issued a directive to train the crème de la crème of top western medical schools from its major metropolises of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, to learn TCM.  These students became the first group of dual trained east-west doctors in the world.  They also represent the world’s largest concerted effort to experiment and understand how the two power houses of medicine – east and west, work together to create just plain good medicine.  This large scale concerted effort has never been repeated again.

Almost sixty years since its auspicious beginning, with unprecedented access to this generation of dual-trained medical doctors who were trained in western medicine and TCM, the Visual History Project has now interviewed and created short biographies of over 100 of the remaining class of pioneer integrative medical doctors and their proteges.  May of these pioneers are pillars of medicine and biomedical research today, all in their 70’s and 80’s.  Their experience and their teachings are a treasure trove of knowledge, some still undiscovered by the western world.

Today, TCM and integrative east-west medicine are practiced in all corners of the globe.  Every major city in the United States has a health care center that focuses on the delivery of integrative medicine.   How do we harness the best of integrative east-west medicine to meet the challenges of our global health crisis?

OO has provided the creative direction and production of this project and the web portal from its inception.  Traveling widely throughout China, we directed and produced all of the China based pioneer interviews and video footage, along with interviews with contemporary international integrative medicine practitioners, from the UK, Germany, Korea, to name a few.  We continue to collaborate closely with UCLA in the production of the feature documentary and the television series.