COLLEGE
The Root and Branch College was founded in 2025 by Conny and Zarig Cooper to offer authentic, high level training in Chinese Medicine.
What’s in a name?
The terms “Root and Branch” (本 běn and 標 biāo) refer to a concept from the Chinese medicine classics, which state that a disease has an origin, or root, which is separate from the symptoms, or branches. When assessing a patient, the physician’s role is to understand both where a disease is coming from, and how it is manifesting, and then to decide at which level the treatment must be aimed at to bring their system back to health most quickly.
Chinese Medicine, as practised by the old doctors, is a profound system of medicine which aims to create clear, tangible results for the patients. It is this tangibility of practice which is at the heart of the Root and Branch training.
In traditional training, a medical apprentice would have sat with the old doctor as they worked, and observed as well as assisted the treatments, day in day out. The clinical practice would have been their main focus of learning, with the apprentice practising skills and gradually using them with patients under the watchful eye of the old doctor. Theories from the classics would have been introduced by the old doctor as and when they were relevant to the patient in front of them. The theories were thus alive and of value as they were directly linked to real patient situations.
While circumstances change, and we teach our acupuncture and Tuina course in the standard course setting which is now commonplace in the UK, our focus remains as much as possible on retaining the real-life context in which Chinese Medicine is meant to be grasped. We emphasize gradually learning and honing hand and needle skills over time, as apprentices would have done. We also present the information from the Classics in a way which relates to real life situations. Always, our focus is on how knowledge and skills directly inform and shape our treatments, to achieve the best health improvements for our patients.
While our graduates work within our modern scope of practice and are encouraged to integrate into standard healthcare, we believe that Chinese medicine training which retains this traditional, tangible focus offers the best path to becoming a truly effective practitioner.
AFFILIATION WITH THE
The Association for Traditional Studies is a non-profit organisation dedicated to documenting and sharing the traditional arts of China.
Its founder Andrew Nugent-Head (born 1967) moved to China at the age of 18 and spent the next 28 years there, learning and practising Chinese Medicine alongside the last remaining old doctors who were educated in pre-communist times. He founded ATS in 1992 to help document, preserve and disseminate their traditional knowledge.
At the Root and Branch College, we are proud to be part of the ATS family. Our syllabus is based on the classical perspective and traditional skills passed on to us from the old doctors, and we are glad to be playing our part in passing them on to the next generation of practitioners.
For our students, we believe that the traditional material we teach is inspiring, stimulating, and most of all, an effective way of practising Chinese Medicine. After graduating, our alumni are ready to join the world-wide ATS community, where they can keep furthering their knowledge with life-long learning. Possibly, over time, they may themselves wish to pass on their knowledge to others.
We are working with the British Acupuncture Accreditation Board to gain accreditation for our course leading to the acupuncture licentiate.
BAAB accreditation is important to us as it is an assurance that our acupuncture course is of the highest standard available in the UK: it shows that all areas of the curriculum are covered at the required depth (Chinese medicine, Western medicine, safety and ethics of practice, clinical experience, etc) and that we operate under good governance and with solid procedures. It confirms that student feedback is regularly solicited to ensure that student satisfaction is high at every stage of the course. Graduates from a BAAB accredited course are entitled to apply for membership of the British Acupuncture Council (BAcC), the main regulatory body for acupuncturists in the UK. Membership of the BAcC is the gold standard for acupuncturists in the UK, and ensures a high level of trust from the public and other stakeholders:
Many members of the public seek out BAcC members when looking for private treatment.
A high number of health insurers (such as AXA, Aviva, Vitality, Simplyhealth, WPA, various cash plans, etc) cover the cost of treatment by BAcC members.
We value the BAAB and BAcC as setting and maintaining high standards for our profession. This allows acupuncture to become more accepted by the public and more integrated with general healthcare.
