Amy Matecki MD, MSC, LAc

Dr. Amy Matecki moved to California from China in 1994, she has been licensed to practice medicine in California since 2002 and in 2004 pioneered a hospital acupuncture program bridging Eastern and Western Medicine at the Alta Bates Summit Comprehensive Cancer Center where since 2008 she has been the Medical Director of the Center for Integrative Medicine. Integrating Chinese Medicine into conventional oncology practice, Dr. Matecki finds that using integrative medicine stimulates the body’s natural ability to heal, often reduces the pain and nausea that frequently accompanies chemotherapy, and provides essential support pre, during, and post-treatment. In many case-level observations, she notes that the integration of Chinese Medicine may enhance cancer patients’ quality of life.

Dr. Matecki was the principal investigator (PI) for acupuncture research for chronic post-chemotherapy fatigue in collaboration with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. She presented her study on the safety of Acupuncture for patients with Lymphedema at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Breast Cancer Symposium in October 2009.

She was co-PI on the first Internal Review Board (IRB) approved acupuncture study in a public hospital looking at acupuncture feasibility for Intensive Care Unit (ICU) patients that was published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine (JACM) in 2017.

In addition to clinical practice, Dr. Matecki co-founder of the International Center for Integrative Medicine helped to create the first Chinese Medicine Residency in the US at Highland Hospital in 2016. This has helped the Chinese Medicine Students to build the confidence to practice when they graduate, become familiar with conventional medical systems, and build referral networks with physicians. It has also helped Western medicine physicians in training to gain knowledge on nonpharmacologic modalities to care for their patients.

Dr. Matecki was appointed to the California Acupuncture Board by Governor Brown in 2016, reappointed in 2017, and reappointed by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2021. She was the President of the California Acupuncture Board from 2017 to 2021. She continues to work on policy and safety guidelines for hospital-based Integrative Medicine practice with a team of physicians, nursing staff, acupuncturists, and multidisciplinary healthcare providers.