One Take with Velia Wortman

👉 The Scoop – Velia’s origins are as fascinating as she is today: born in Mexico from a 3^rd generation Chinese woman and a Canadian father. A trained doctor, today, Velia is the leading practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine in Germany.

👉 Decisive Moment #1 – In 1992 a postcard fell out of a doctor's magazine from the Deutsche Herbstblatt. And this postcard said, starting next month, there will be acupuncture courses run in the city of Nuremberg. So, I thought, how I can kind of rescue myself from my humdrum existence as a mother, and my GP existence? So, what the hell? Let me try it. And so that was 1993. And after that, my career in Chinese medicine took off.

👉 Unexpected change or event – There's a part of the free university, the Humboldt University, huge hospital called the Charité, where research is done into acupuncture, into Qigong, acupressure, and Tuina. Okay, all of this is happening here. Unthinkable 30 years ago. Unthinkable.

👉 What did she do? – “I can’t retire.”

👉 About older workers – We belong to a generation where we're willing to work very hard. Everybody's talking about work/life balance. Hello, in 1976, when I was starting medical school, it was work/work balance, right? For young people It's like, I'm sorry to say this, but it's life/life.