Iqaluit acupuncturist offers alternate healing

Have an ache or pain? Pauline Vaughan, Iqaluit’s newly-arrived acupuncturist, may be able to help you. (PHOTO BY DAVID MURPHY)

You might not expect to find a place dedicated to the traditional Chinese healing practice of acupuncture in the Arctic.

However there’s a new acupuncture clinic in Iqaluit, located by the Nunavut Hair Studio off the Federal Road.

Inside, you can hear music from a Chinese wind instrument playing in the background at Pauline Vaughan’s new acupuncture clinic, called True North Acupuncture Studio.

Like the music, Vaughan speaks in a calm, rhythmic fashion — not afraid to pause and collect her thoughts for several seconds before speaking, and not raising her voice any more than it needs to be.

This adds to the comfort level of Vaughan’s patients at the new clinic, which is devoted to community acupuncture.

“It’s essentially how acupuncture is done in China and Japan, in a community room with people together,” Vaughan said.

Acupuncture involves inserting pins into the skin to heal pain, mental health issues like anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and even allergies and addictions like smoking.

This form of traditional Chinese medicine, established thousands of years ago, is based on idea that life forces called “qui” that run down 12 invisible “meridians” or channels in the body.

When this qui stops flowing down these meridians, pins inserted into these channels act like keys that open the flow of qui, thus relieving symptoms, Vaughan explains.

“I think even after studying acupuncture for four years I still had a sense of — what is this? But then you keep seeing it working over and over,” Vaughan said.

“People don’t know what to expect from acupuncture. But I say, it’s a medical treatment, not a religion. You don’t have to believe in it.”

Four reclining chairs are draped in bed sheets in the four corners of her clinic so that Vaughan can see more than one patient at a time.

“This allows me to see a broader range of people in the society and a larger number of people. Someone doing one person an hour can see maybe 30 people a week. Whereas I can see up to 100,” Vaughan said.

This kind of community acupuncture helps bring the cost of providing the service because Vaughn can treat more people at one time.

“The patients I see tell me they appreciate the lower fees. It allows them to see me more often, and they can get better quicker,” said Vaughan, who also does group therapy sessions and provides herbal medicine treatment.

An acupuncture still costs $50 per person, which is still more expensive than clinics in the South.

Although not the most northerly acupuncture clinic in the world, Vaughan says her clinic is definitely the most northern community acupuncture clinic.

“I’ve always been attracted to the North,” said Vaughan who closed her clinic in Kingston, Ont., last January and decided to head into retirement at the age of 62.

That, however, didn’t sit well with her.

“I wasn’t entirely settled with the idea and didn’t really know what to do next. Then, one of my daughters who worked in Cambridge Bay for four years said you should go North.”

That’s what she did, and she’s lucky — Vaughan replaced long-established acupuncturist Elise Bohemier, who built up a large clientele before leaving about three years ago.

Her departure left a demand for acupuncture which has remained unmet until now.

“So when I arrived here, I hit the ground running. I had people booked before I got off the plane. Got off the plane at 12:30 p.m., and had my first patient at 3 o’clock in the afternoon,” she said.

Vaughan’s method of acupuncture doesn’t require the patient to remove any clothing: she only inserts needles in places below the elbow and below the knee.

So far Vaughn had provided 160 treatments, most to people coming in for pain relief.

However, Vaughan expects more people might come with more mental health issues when “the darkness comes.”

“It’ll be interesting to see,” Vaughan said.