clinic faculty

Deborah Barham, OTR/L, LAc
Clinical Director

Deborah is a Burke County native and has resided in North Carolina her whole life. She is a NC Licensed Acupuncturist and Occupational Therapist. She obtained a B.S. in Occupational Therapy from East Carolina University and focused on working with the elderly, developmentally delayed children and clients with hand/arm injuries. She has taught as a senior therapist at Duke University Medical Center and served as an adjunct faculty member at Jung Tao School She graduated from Jung Tao and owns and operates an integrative practice. Deborah also is passionate in her research and synthesis of information on Alzheimers.

Julie Barefoot, LAc
Clinical Supervisor

Julie, a Raleigh, NC native, graduated from Jung Tao School in 2008. She switched career paths in 2007 from a medical aesthetician to the Student Director of Jung Tao to aid future classes through their journeys in discovering Chinese Medicine. Since her graduation, she has opened acupuncture clinics in her hometown of Raleigh as well as her current residence, Mountain City, TN. She enjoys sharing her extensive knowledge of Chinese Medicine with her community through her weekly radio program titled Health Alternatives with Julie Barefoot. Her most exciting moments are utilizing her acupuncture skills to assist women with childbirth. She has currently assisted with labor and deliveries at Carolina Medical Center, Rex Hospital, UNC Women's Center, Duke and ETSU.

Greg Bryson, MFA, LAc, CMT
Clinical Supervisor

Greg Bryson began teaching as a graduate student at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he received a Master of Fine Arts Degree in 1998. For most of the next ten years he taught art as an instructor at Virginia Tech. During this time he began studying Chinese martial arts, and continues to train under Mike Denbow in the North American Tang Shou Tao Association. The martial arts training introduced him to both Western and Eastern bodywork modalities, leading to his completion of the massage program at the Blue Ridge School of Massage and Yoga in 2007 and the acupuncture program at the Jung Tao School of Classical Chinese Medicine in 2008. He currently serves as a clinical supervisor at the Jung Tao School and practices acupuncture and massage therapy at his clinic, New River Healing Arts, in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Tom Eddins, LAc
Clinical Supervisor

Tom Eddins began his study of energetics in the field of music, completing his Batchelor of Fine Arts with a concentration in classical guitar performance at the North Carolina School of the Arts in 1999. Tom subsequently moved to the mountains of North Carolina and, enchanted by their beauty and green serenity, began to study Chinese bio-energetics through martial arts and taijiquan. Tom has worked in the field of health care since 2000, and acupuncture specifically since 2003. He graduated in the top tier of his class at Jung Tao School of Classical Chinese Medicine in 2005. Tom has since taught classes in Taijiquan both in the community and at Jung Tao. He is an NCCAOM certified, licensed acupuncturist in the state of North Carolina and currently runs a private acupuncture practice in Boone, North Carolina.

Sarah Girard, LAc
Clinical Supervisor

Sarah began studying Chinese dietary therapy in 1999. After enrolling at Jung Tao School and graduating in 2005, she opened the Classical Chinese Medicine & Acupuncture Clinic in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She also teaches An Introduction to Classical Chinese Medicine at the Forsyth Technical Community College Massage School.

In 2009 she completed an extended (eight weekend) Chinese Dietary Therapy Program through the Chinatown Wellness Center in New York City with Jeffery Yuen, adding to 300 post-graduate hours with Jeffery in Chronic Painful Obstruction (Bi Syndrome); Endocrinology; Cancer; Channel Systems of Acupuncture and Stone Medicine.

She is now both clinical instructor and regular presenter at Jung Tao's Grand Rounds Clinique modules.


Brian Moran, LAc, MA
Clinical Supervisor

Brian Moran’s interest in Chinese medicine emerged through his lifelong study of Asian Martial Arts. He has been actively practicing internal martial arts since 1978 and has been a certified instructor since 1988. He is certified to teach Northern Shao-Lin Gung Fu, Yang Family Taijiquan and I-Quan Qi Gung. He is also an Inheritor of the Tai Tzu Chang Chuan Gung Fu system. He has been running Smoky Mountain Kung Fu in Western NC since 1996.

Brian earned his B.A. in Philosophy and Religion from Appalachian State in 1990, and his M.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies from Oregon State University in 1996. Brian’s medical studies began in 1991 by completing his E.M.T. certification at A-B Tech in Asheville, NC. In 1992, he began studying Tui Na and Dit Da (hit/fall martial medicine) therapies. He entered the Acupuncture program at Jung Tao School of Classical Chinese Medicine in 2001, and is now a graduate and licensed acupuncturist. Currently he is Clinical Instructor as well as didactic lecturer at Jung Tao School. He is also owner of an Acupuncture Clinic and Martial Arts school in Weaverville, North Carolina, where he holds daily classes on Qi Gung, Taijiquan and Internal Martial Arts.

Abe Rummage, LAc, LMBT
Clinical Supervisor

Abe began his study of Chinese medicine, Taiji and martial arts in 2000 with apprenticeships under Sifu Yahesh Ben Yisrael and master acupuncturist Jim Westmoreland. In 2004 Abe obtained his diploma in Massage and Bodywork Therapy from Southeastern School of Neuromuscular and Massage Therapy and became board certified and state licensed in North Carolina as a massage and bodywork therapist.

He continued with formal education at Jung Tao School and graduated at the top of his class in June 2008. He became North Carolina licensed and Nationally board certified in acupuncture by the NCCAOM in the same month. Abe owns and operates a private practice in North Carolina.

clinic staff

Pat Birdsong
Clinic Manager

Pat Birdsong has lived in Sugar Grove, North Carolina for the past 30 years. She has been very active in community efforts and serves as a member of the Cove Creek Community Council. She was the founding Chair of the non-profit Sugar Grove Developmental Day School and continues to serve on the Board of Directors. She has also served on the Board of Directors of Cove Creek Preservation and Development for the past eight years. Ms. Birdsong began her career as a paralegal working with Civil Rights actions in the State of Mississippi and the Native American Rights Fund in Boulder, Colorado. While her children were young, she worked as a batik artist from her home and was a member of two local cooperative galleries. She continued her education at Appalachian State University where she earned her Masters in Communication Disorders. She is currently Certified in Clinical Competence as a Speech-Language Pathologist, specializing in therapeutic intervention for young children with developmental disabilities. Ms. Birdsong has been a patient of alternative and Chinese medicines for the past 33 years, having first realized the benefits of acupuncture in 1974.

Valise Jackson
Clinic Manager

Valise Jackson moved to Jefferson in August, 2010 from Fairview, Tennessee. While living in Tennessee, Ms. Jackson was a Commercial Property Manager overseeing 1.3 million square feet of retail commercial space and a licensed notary. After moving to the high country, Ms Jackson has been active in the community by volunteering at Threads of Hope in Jefferson and as a personal mission compiling handmade fabric bags of toiletries and other personal items for the women who use the services of the Battered Women’s Shelter in Ashe County and Hampton, Virginia. Ms. Jackson started acupuncture treatments in 2011 and has realized the positive affects that it contributes to having a healthy body.

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