LOS ANGELES -- After years of medical school and rigorous scientific study, Dr. Jim Sheller was more than skeptical when he heard that pain could be relieved by needles.

It didn't fit with the hard-and-fast evidence behind Western medicine; poppycock, he called it.But as acupuncture gained popularity among his American patients, Sheller decided to learn more about the ancient practice. He was quickly converted.

He put his anesthesiology practice aside and enrolled full-time in a Chinese medicine school. These days, he even makes acupuncture house calls.

"I see myself as a bridge," said Sheller, 59. "My motto: Have needles, will travel."

As a growing number of Americans seek Eastern medicines for chronic ailments, more and more Western doctors are heading back to the classroom to learn acupuncture and Eastern theories on health. It's a striking indication that Asian healing, including herbology and holistic healing, has become more mainstream.

Western and Eastern medical disciplines, once viewed as competing disciplines, are increasingly becoming complementary, says Dr. Ka Kit Hui, director of the Center for East-West Medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles.

While Chinese medicine in itself might not be adequate alone to treat patients, Western medicine sometimes lacked a holistic approach, narrowing in on a specific illness or treatment rather than looking at the patient's overall health, Hui said.

"By using Chinese medicine to look at the forest and using Western medicine to look at the trees, we have a better view of the landscape of the human condition," he said.

Among U.S. medical schools, UCLA runs one of the largest acupuncture training courses for licensed physicians. The 200-hour program that began with about 20 students and doctors about a decade ago now teaches nearly 600 a year.

An estimated 4,000 U.S. physicians have some training in acupuncture, according to the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture, a group of doctors who have incorporated acupuncture into their medical practice.

The trend has been growing as patients demand alternatives to pill-popping and health insurance companies offer at least limited coverage for acupuncture.

"I think there's an element of the physician reacting to the changing demographics of the patient population and the inability to be the cure-all for all that ails the patient," said Jim Dowden, executive director of the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture.

A 1997 American Medical Association study showed that more than two-thirds of U.S. medical schools offered elective classes on Eastern medicines.

Eastern medicine isn't just acupuncture, of course. It takes into account the entire body's balance and energy -- and maintaining that balance through diet, exercise, herbs, meditation or massage.

Many U.S. doctors who have already had years of medical training usually attend seminars or extension classes to learn about acupuncture, herbs or holistic healing. Attending a traditional Chinese medicine school for four years is a tough pill to swallow.

Podiatrist Wayne Jower, however, took the plunge.

"I had no idea in the state of California that I had to learn 340 to 350 herbs. If that wasn't enough, I had to learn 140 formulas with 12 to 14 herbs. If that wasn't enough, I had to learn internal Chinese medicine diagnosis," he said.

But his studies have paid off. "It's another way of looking at the body. It's like looking at the other side of a coin," Jower said.

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Dr. Chang Sok So earned his Western medical degree after being a doctor in Korea for several years. He currently teaches at a private Chinese medical school in Santa Ana and co-teaches a bilingual anatomy class at the University of California at Irvine.

"Oriental medicine can treat a stroke," So said. "But it's difficult to diagnose what is the cause of the stroke."

His students know the location of acupuncture needle points but have little understanding of human anatomy. That is until they take the class So teaches with a UCI professor in Korean and English.

"This is a good sign of the future," So said.

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