We were lucky to catch up with Janene Borandi recently and have shared our conversation below.
Janene, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.
Acupuncture is not my first career! I started out in information technology at the National Institutes of Health and after about a year in support of the Office of the Director, I went on to take a federal position with the Social Security administration. I started out as a computer programmer, and went on to become a project manager. My team and I oversaw the business case preparation and strategic planning process of many of the agency’s high-risk, high-visibility programs, such as Medicare, Title II, the Disability Case Processing systems, and SSA’s many IT infrastructure initiatives. Exciting stuff, huh? Well it was kinda stressful, but it prepared me well for a lot of things. My team participated in cross agency collaborations with the Department of Health, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security, so I got to get the lay of the land when it comes to how things REALLY work on the federal scene.
About halfway through my career as an IT professional I began experiencing some pretty serious anxiety. One day in particular I remember we were close to submitting our business cases to the Office of Management and Budget – a very stressful time for everyone involved. I was facilitating meetings all day and working overtime. Well, after one of my meetings I called my boss to tell him that I felt like I was choking, and it was not only affecting my ability to speak, but that I was starting to feel like I couldn’t breathe well.
So, I canceled the rest of my meetings, took the rest of the day off, and went to see my doctor. After some discussion, my doctor gave me a prescription for Xanax and told me “if one doesn’t work, take two”. One did not work, but within the hour I had two Xanax down the hatch and was finally feeling some relief. But a few days of feeling like a zombie, and I also quickly came to realize that pharmaceutical intervention would NOT be a realistic long-term solution for me. I began to have less interest in the things that I always loved like rock climbing, and cycling and hanging out with friends.
Strangely, and without influence or encouragement from anyone, I got online and Googled “acupuncture”. My reasoning at the time was based purely on “mind over matter” and what I thought I knew about the placebo effect. I knew nothing about acupuncture at all. Except that I saw it once in a movie. I knew I was not going to be okay living my life feeling out of body and flat, and that I could definitely harness the power of my mind to get myself back into balance and living peacefully again without pharmaceuticals.
So I made an appointment with the first acupuncturist that came up on the search. Within weeks, I was feeling like myself again. I no longer had the choking sensation, AND no longer needed Xanax. I was sleeping well at night and feeling better than I ever had. Mission accomplished!
I continued my treatments for several years, and along the course of that time experienced some very interesting things. Now, as an analyst and self-proclaimed skeptic, I became very curious about exactly what was going on and how it was working. It became quite obvious to me that it was not placebo or mind over matter as I expected. However, there were very few resources that could help me fully understand exactly what was going on. And the kinds of experiences I was having made it impossible for me to just stand by and not get to the bottom of it! So, after several more curious experiences, a lot of digging into acupuncture and other naturopathic medical programs, and a few conversations with my supervisors, in 2011, I enrolled in a full-time master of acupuncture program and set my sights on changing my career to become an acupuncturist. A move that MANY of my friends and colleagues discouraged me from doing.
But, I will also add, that at the time, I was witnessing quite a bit of pain in my inner circle; family members and friends with irreconcilable pain, and the downward spiral of what we are now retrospectively calling the Opioid Epidemic. At the time I thought: “Oh my gosh, acupuncture worked SO well for me… why not use this and other non-invasive modalities to effect change in the bodies and minds of the people in my life? What about the people we serve through our public health programs? Why were we, as a federal agency, sending people to doctors, to have the doctors assign them a Disability determination? When maybe there’s something out there that can actually help them heal and thrive? To help them get back to work instead of having to sneak around and work under the table to feel useful in their lives at the risk of getting caught and nailed for Social Security fraud?? I mean, REALLY? Having worked with people for 10+ years now, most people really want to feel better and get back to work and live without pain and disability.
When I approached my boss about this…she laughed and said something along the lines of it being “so idealistic”. And in that moment I learned that even though I was on the inside of a federal agency, with billions of dollars at our disposal, we were not capable of such an abrupt change in course. The best visual I can paint is from a trip to Alaska when our cruise ship got to the end of the fjord and we had to turn around in a very narrow pass full of floating glaciers. In federal service, I could really only focus on my job, which was buried many layers under any hope for widespread policy change.
When I entered federal service, I attended an orientation with a bunch of other young, excited newcomers. I remember the Associate Deputy Commissioners for Systems saying: “We’re giving you the keys to the castle, now don’t screw it up!” I took that seriously. I genuinely felt it was my duty as a public servant to change things for the better. I was proud of my country and excited to work hard. And if I was to be a good steward of the tax payer’s dollars, then it was my job to improve the quality and outcomes of our public health programs; and to come up with ideas that will help people live well and thrive. Well, it became apparent to me that the system is so bogged down and wrapped around the axel, that I would have to change MY professional trajectory, instead, in order to truly make an impact on the lives of others and fulfill that duty.
So, rather than pretend as if effective solutions don’t exist, I set my sites on becoming an acupuncturist. Three years later, I graduated with a master of acupuncture degree from the Maryland University of Integrative Health (MUIH). I had an incredibly special experience at what was then known as TAI Sophia. The core of the program itself–known affectionately to myself and my colleagues as SOPHIA–prepared me in more ways than just gaining a technical skill set and entrepreneurship. My mentors, supervisors, and teachers embodied the heart and soul of this medicine, and I owe much of my joy and success today, to their guidance and the very powerful and paradigm-shifting experience they facilitated for me and my cohort.
As soon as I graduated from MUIH, I hit the ground running and opened my private practice. The following year I volunteered with Acupuncture for Veterans in Maryland and began attending trauma-informed training. I later went on to work in the Integrative Health and Wellness Department at the VA Medical Center in Washington, DC, where I treated veterans with acupuncture. While I was there, I participated in the Gulf War Veterans Illness and Injury Study, in the War-Related Illness and Injury Study Center. In 2016 I moved from the Washington metropolitan area, to a small town about 2 hours east of Las Vegas, called St. George Utah, and re-established myself here. I now have a thriving practice, I teach acupuncture to medical school students, and I am actively working toward building a relationship between a local university and a Chinese Medicine institute, so that our youth has yet another option when electing to study and practice medicine. This hybrid program will offer students in my rural town, an opportunity to study locally, and upon graduating, offer more people this very safe, minimally-invasive, and non-pharmacological solution to pain and many other conditions.
I love my profession. I am very proud of my colleagues, and I humbled and grateful to be doing the work.
Thank you for the opportunity to shine a light on my profession and to share my story.
Dr. Borandi
Janene, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
The previous page explains a LOT about me, my story, and who I am…
The thing that sets me apart, I think, is how I connect so deeply with my patients. When they come to see me initially, it may be for a series of symptoms. And for sure I do my best to treat those symptoms and help them find relief from their suffering. But it is rare for me to interact with someone without also making every attempt to somehow speak deeply to their heart. The spirit is often overlooked in our fast-paced, technology and media-driven culture. And the blanket of mediocrity that these false connections leave most people living under, makes it easy for me to sneak in under the radar and let people know how very deeply I see them; and how much I care; and how much care I intend to use when speaking to their heart and spirit. To me, this work is sacred.
If you could go back in time, do you think you would have chosen a different profession or specialty?
Absolutely – if I could go back and choose this profession from the very beginning of undergrad, I feel like I could have skipped so many years of what many of us might refer to as “mid-life crisis”. Even though I was mid-career in my IT profession, I still did not feel settled. I was still asking myself: “What do I really want to be when I grow up?” I’m so happy to have found it.
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
The work we do as acupuncturists requires a LOT of energy. Most of us pour a lot of heart and soul into our patient encounters, because acupuncture holds mind, body, and spirit as inseparable. The best thing I ever did to ensure I could sustain my practice, is I built a clientele that was right for me. I set boundaries for myself AND my patients. I didn’t agree to see just anyone. I connected personally with prospective patients to ensure they knew what to expect from me as a professional, and what to expect from acupuncture as a modality. If I got the sense that something was just not quite right between us, I immediately referred them to another provider and helped them understand that I didn’t think I could help them. I think some people in medicine would look at this and call it “cherry picking” or refusing care, and in the past, professionals have come under scrutiny for it. However, with the very obvious crisis we’re seeing amongst medical professionals now, I think this strategy might help those in medical practices avoid burnout and enjoy the benefits of a rewarding practice.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://drborandi.com
- Instagram: @theacupuncturist_org
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheAcupuncturist.org
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janene-borandi-379197/
- Twitter: @theacupunctrist
- Youtube: @theacupuncturist1052
Image Credits
Images by Aidan Kurtz and Samantha Parker (I did not include any images from Samantha yet, but I may get access to them very soon – thanks for your patience and the opportunity to share my story!)