Healthcare professionals from around the world attend courses from the Canadian Institute of Auricular Medicine (CIAM) for the practical skills gained as a result of the approachable and thought provoking teaching style of lead instructor, Dave Maybee. Dave has taught Auricular Medicine at CIAM since 2008 and became director of CIAM in 2019.

Dave expertly conveys his ever growing passion in German Auricular Medicine — as based on the work of medical doctors, Paul Nogier, Frank Bahr, Beate Strittmatter and other leading physicians and researchers in the field — through a deep knowledge of the material. He engages students with clinical examples, demonstrations and Q&A to accommodate and spark diverse interests while delivering clear objectives and learning outcomes. 

In addition to teaching, Dave also practices as a Registered Massage Therapist (RMT). His practice, opened in 2008, integrates cranial sacral therapy and myofascial release with auricular medicine to treat unresolved chronic pain and other issues found in therapy resistant patients (e.g. hard to treat patients who have “tried everything”). Treatment outcomes recorded at his practice suggest a success rate of over 85%. Dave credits this success to the identification and treatment of blockages to healing — a key concept of German Auricular Medicine. Additionally, Dave has developed clinical methods to identify and prioritize deep psychological blockages which maintain chronic pain, among other conditions. In a small study at his practice, he found that without treating the symptom, and only by treating the most important psychological blockage point, a patients’ chronic pain disappeared and in most cases did not return. This study supports an understanding of the importance of emotions on health, and of neurological insight on diagnosis and treatment priorities.

Dave promotes collaboration in the field. In 2020 he presented a welcome address for the International Academic Forum on Standards for Auricular Diagnosis and Treatment in Foshan, China, where he was invited as an international guest speaker.

 

Lisa Weleschuk, RAc
Instructor and Clinical Practicum Advisor

 

Lisa Weleschuk has been practicing as a licensed acupuncturist in Calgary since 2006. She graduated from the Alberta College of Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine in 2006, and earned a diploma in Traditional Chinese Medicine from the University of Beijing for her studies and hospital practicums completed in China.

Discovering how other cultures have developed acupuncture, Lisa was greatly impressed with the effective assessment and treatment framework provided German Auricular Medicine and studied under Dr. Beatte Strittmatter, Director of Education at the German Academy of Acupuncture. This led her to the Canadian Institute for Auricular Medicine, where she completed Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 CIAM certification.

Her deep appreciation of what it means to be whole, through personal observation that the physical and emotional are indeed so entangled, and cannot be separated, she also completed years of study in Transactional Analysis. Through this work, she experienced that when people own their emotional processes and actively work on themselves, the physical responds on a deeper level — and she sees her role as supporting what is needed in the physical body while helping people attend to their  emotional needs. Further workshops with Mark (Seva) Terrell support Lisa's integration of deep meditational transformation into her acupuncture sessions.

 

Dr. Muriel Agnes, MAEd, PhD
Instructor Emeritus