Meet THE FOUNDER

Dr. Misha Cohen

Misha Ruth Cohen, OMD, L.Ac.

Doctor of Oriental Medicine and Licensed Acupuncturist

Misha Ruth Cohen is the Director of Chicken Soup Chinese Medicine, Executive Director of the MRCE Foundation, and a former Research Specialist of Integrative Medicine at the University of California Institute for Health and Aging, all in San Francisco. She has been a member of the board of directors of the Society for Integrative Oncology and is active in SIO. Dr. Cohen has been practicing traditional Asian medicine for the past 45 years.

Education & Training

After attending Oberlin College, Misha Cohen, OMD, L.Ac., was trained in acupuncture at Lincoln Hospital’s Detox Program in the South Bronx under the auspices of the Quebec School of Acupuncture. After moving to California, she continued her studies in Chinese traditional medicine, acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine at the San Francisco College of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. She received her doctorate in gynecology from SFCAOM in 1987.

The National Commission for the Certification of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine certifies her nationally in acupuncture and herbal medicine. For more than thirty-five years, she has developed treatment protocols for people with HIV/AIDS. She was a member of the Ad Hoc Subpanel on Alternative and Complementary Therapy Research of the NIH Office of AIDS Research and in 1996 was selected by POZ Magazine as one of 50 top AIDS researchers.

Teaching

Dr. Cohen, OMD, L.Ac., is recognized internationally as a senior teacher and leading expert in Chinese traditional medicine. She was invited several times by the Chinese government to present her programs, and her articles on HIV/AIDS were officially translated for use in China.

Dr. Misha Cohen designed the HIV Professional Certification Program for Licensed Acupuncturists and certified more than 200 practitioners between 1985 and 1990. In 1990, she designed the Hepatitis C Professional Training Program for Licensed Acupuncturists trained more than 450 practitioners from 1990 through 2009.

She regularly trains Chinese medicine practitioners, including medical doctors and Chinese medicine doctoral students, in Europe and the US. Her focus is primarily cancer support, gynecology, HIV, hepatitis, and other subjects. She frequently attends and presents at international AIDS, hepatitis and cancer symposiums, as well as many Chinese medicine and lay conferences.

Dr. Cohen is a visiting lecturer and professor in the doctoral programs of the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, The Oregon College of Oriental Medicine and the Academy of Chinese Culture and Health sciences, among other institutions.

Writing

Dr. Cohen, OMD, L.Ac., has written numerous articles, appeared on national radio and TV, and has published several books. She has also published widely in both lay magazines and professional journals in the areas of women’s health, gynecology, cancer support, HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis, as wells a Chinese medicine and herbal research methodology.

She was the Complementary and Alternative Medicine Editor for NUMEDX Magazine (numedx.com) and was featured as a columnist in Hepatitis Magazine/Liver Health Today for several years (Ask Doc Misha). She is also featured on Doc Misha’s Chicken Soup Chinese Medicine Web site.

Her San Francisco clinic is at chickensoupchinesemedicine.com.

Featured Books

Research

In Dr. Cohen’s years with Quan Yin Healing Arts Center, she conducted herbal and acupuncture research. Her collaboration with Western physicians at San Francisco General Hospital in a double-blind placebo pilot clinical trial using Chinese herbal medicine for HIV+ persons led to the first peer-reviewed published study of Chinese herbal medicine for HIV (JAIDS, 1996). Misha was a co-investigator in five additional completed university studies: a peer-reviewed published study of herbal medicine for HIV-related symptoms at the Zürich University Hospital, Zürich, Switzerland (JAIDS, 1999) and was co-investigator with Dr. Donald Abrams of the UCSF AIDS Community Consortium in two studies related to HIV chronic diarrhea (peer-reviewed and published in Integrative Medicine, 1999) and mild to moderate anemia collaborated with Dr. Sue Dibble in an controlled acupressure study for nausea in breast cancer related chemotherapy and was the co-investigator with Dr. Naomi Jay in a pilot study of prevention of anal cancer using Chinese herbs.

Dr. Cohen also was principal investigator in a Quan Yin Healing Arts Center study of the use of acupuncture in co-infection with HIV/hepatitis viruses. Dr. Cohen was the co-investigator at UCSF for a in-vitro study of mechanisms for a Chinese herbal formula widely used for in endometriosis and dysmenorrhea.

She completed research as the leading investigator on a University of California research team for a Phase II study of a topical herbal cream in treatment of HPV-related anal neoplasia to prevent anal cancer.

Dr. Cohen has presented her research projects at many scientific conferences, most notably the International AIDS Conference, the Society for Integrative Oncology and the Society for Acupuncture Research.

In addition, she is a peer reviewer for several medical journals in the areas of Chinese medicine, integrative medicine, women’s health, HIV/AIDS and complementary and alternative medicine.

Treatments

Dr. Cohen has created Chinese traditional medicine treatment protocols for PMS, infertility, hepatitis, HIV, endometriosis, HPV-related diseases and menopausal syndromes that are used by many practitioners of Asian medicine. She has also developed herbal formulas for HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, chronic viral illness, cancer support, fibromyalgia, and the common cold.