Celia Hildebrand
Celia Hildebrand, DAOM, LAC is a contributing faculty member of the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine, and previously a research assistant professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Arizona (Tucson). She holds a Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine from the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine where her dual focus was on the role of East Asian Medicine in public health, and its use in trauma response and recovery.
Dr. Hildebrand has worked in the field of health care and environmental services for more than 35 years, the majority of which have included American communities of the Southwestern United States. Since 2000 she has been involved with health disparity and equity issues, raising more than $16 million for health programs and construction of health care facilities, improved infrastructure and housing improvements. Involved with higher education since 2008, she has served as Academic Dean, Chair of Clinical Education, and faculty for accredited schools of East Asian Medicine. In these roles she has collaborated with inter-disciplinary teams of Western and Eastern Medical educators, clinicians, and researchers using Evidence-Based Practices for in-patient and out-patient hospital and community clinics.
Dr. Hildebrand maintains a private acupuncture clinical practice in Tucson where she continues to work across medical boundaries and engages in collaborative medical care involving western, eastern and indigenous practices. She is a current Board member of the Ukrainian American Society of Tucson and a past Board member of Acupuncturists Without Borders. In 2019 she was awarded a Fulbright Specialist grant to develop and teach an auricular acupuncture curriculum for trauma, pain, and addiction at the Uzhhorod National University School of Medicine in Ukraine. With the onset of war in Ukraine in March 2022, she became involved with Ukrainian refugee and immigration issues and advocated for many refugees with state and federal agencies. She continued work with doctors trained in 2019 through biweekly meetings and trainings via Zoom and in August 2022 was invited by the University to return to Uzhhorod, where she worked with MDs and military professionals to expand the training and perform clinical services for wounded soldiers and civilians. She returned to Ukraine in May and again in June of 2023 to expand the curriculum and again teach and practice in hospitals and clinics in Uzhhorod and Lviv.
As a 2nd generation American, she recognizes Southwestern Ukraine / southeastern Poland as her maternal family home; her paternal family home is Bavaria. While in her 20s, Dr. Hildebrand began her studies in legacy and traditional medicine with her mother’s lineage from the Carpathian Mountains of Ukraine. For the past 35 years she has worked beside, studied under, and occasionally lived with indigenous and traditional healers from other countries and cultures. These experiences combined with studies and practice of EAM have informed and framed her clinical and academic interests in health, well-being, and resiliency through lived and historical trauma. She is especially concerned about the loss of traditional knowledge and practices which has led her to dive deeply into ethnomedicine, approaching definitions of health and well-being from cultural context of family and community.