Will Morris, PhD, is the president and CEO of the Academy of Oriental Medicine at Austin (www.aoma.edu). Will has a Master’s of Science in Education with a focus on medical education through USC and a PhD in transformative studies from CIIS. His interests are in Chinese medicine and leadership with a focus on personal and collective transformation.
Will teaches Chinese pulse diagnosis and moderates the pulse diagnosis Yahoo group with more than 800 people participating world wide. He also founded the web site www.pulsediagnosis.com. Morris has studied pulse diagnosis since 1980, beginning with European five element balancing methods. He co-taught with Leon Hammer, MD between 2004 and 2000 in MA, FL, DC, CA, NY and NC. Leon Hammer now teaches the methods under the monikers, Contemporary Oriental Medicine (COM) and Contemporary Chinese Pulse Diagnosis (CCPD). Since then, Will has focused on rendering contemporary applications of canonical literature relative to channel theory, evolution and consciousness. He has further adapted the Shen-Hammer nomenclature to conventional pulse diagnosis language and continues to teach the method on that basis. Will discovered the compass method and was the first to publish in English on the eight extraordinary vessel and six channel pulse methods of Wang Shuhe. He completed his PhD dissertation, Pulse Diagnosis: Epistemology, Practice and Tradition in 2009. It is a synthesis of conventional, canonical and family lineage forms of practice that is deconstructed in terms of how clinical knowledge is built.
As editor, Morris served as Editor in Chief of the American Acupuncturist between 2005 and 2007. He served on the Editorial board for the American Acupuncturist 2001 to Present and the editorial board for the Journal of Acupuncture and Tuina Science 2009 to Present. Will served as a prepublication reviewer for Elsevier between 1999 and 2005. He wrote product support literature for Sheng Chang pharmaceuticals between 1989 and 1998. He provided product support literature for Far East Summit between 2000 and 2004. Advisory Board, Integrator Blog 2006 – Present.
As leader, Will’s presidency of the American Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine was focused on the "Great Unification". This was a campaign desiegned to merge the American Association of Oriental Medicine and the Acupucnture (AAOM) and Oriental Medicine Alliance (AOMAlliance). His drive and determination as well as his leadership and ability to build trust created an atmosphere where the AOMAlliance the AAOM could consider a merger to be a real possibility.
As educator, Morris is responsible for the development of two Doctorate of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (DAOM) programs, one at Emperor’s College and the other at SAMRA University. Morris has extensive background in research. His PhD work is focused on qualitative research methods. His education in quantitative research design took place in the DAOM and MSEd programs. An entry for his DAOM portfolio involved developing and implementing an Institutional Review Board (IRB) for Emperor’s College. He later did the same for the Academy of Oriental Medicine at Austin. Will also served as a consultant to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles IRB for acupuncture research protocols. As a leader in academic medicine, Will has engaged in ongoing research as it pertains to program and learner outcomes. Will presented his research on The Effect of (PENS) training on Student Confidence, Skills and Satisfaction at USC Innovations in Medical Education 2004. He presented on a Co-operative research model on The Power of Assumption in Human Relations at the Fifth International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, at the University of Illinois. Will also participated in collaborative study on the use of acupuncture in post stroke sequelae; this took place between USC, Daniel Freeman Hospital and Emperor’s College. The bulk of Will’s research interest has been in the areas of historical research and hermeneutic approaches. Will’s current interest is in the politics of evidence, how it is built and how it is used.
© 2009 Chinese Pulse Diagnosis :: NeoClassical Pulse Diagnosis, Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine