Dragon Fire.Sides

David Bernard
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Clinic Dragon ÀI Founder David Bernard discusses integrative medicine modalities and the challenges and alchemy required to running profitable clinics

  1. Oct 26

    Dr. Julian Grow MSTOM, LAc.: "They Almost Took My Leg"

    Dr. Julian Grow, MSTOM, L.Ac., treats patients at Sacred Silence Acupuncture in Bushwick and the Financial District in New York City. He came to Chinese medicine through a rare bone tumor at 22, then spent years testing nearly every alternative path there is, from raw veganism and jiu-jitsu to plant medicine ceremonies in the Amazon. But none of that is why this conversation matters. Most origin stories stop at “I got sick and found this medicine.” Julian’s keeps going, through the misdiagnosis, the surgeries, the detox workshops, the ceremonies, and the day he was suspended from acupuncture school. What he took from all of it is simple: no one is responsible for your health more than you are. What we cover: Why a runner who broke school records lived on daily Advil for years under a stress fracture diagnosis, and what it took to finally get a second opinionThe day his leg gave way while he was waiting tables, the second surgery, and the warning that he might lose the leg if the donor bone didn’t fuseWhy recovery in a hospital convinced him it was a place people go to die, not to heal, and the documentary that sent him toward food as medicineA decade of raw vegan, paleo, CrossFit, jiu-jitsu and fringe therapies, and why “just keep detoxing” stopped making sense: at some point you don’t detox, you buildAyahuasca, San Pedro, and a 115-year-old medicine man in Ecuador, and the tradition’s belief that the healer has to suffer tooGetting suspended from acupuncture school in his last semester, and what the medicine men taught him about staying quiet about what’s sacredWhy so many acupuncturists come out of punk culture, and what “the revolution happens inside” means for a practitionerWhat nobody tells you: being good at acupuncture does not pay the rent, and the years he spent learning thatThis is part one. Part two is who he is now. Chapters (from the transcript timestamps, so check against the final cut): 0:00 Intro 0:22 The diagnosis 2:55 The leg gives out 4:52 Food Matters and food as medicine 14:28 Nobody is responsible for your health more than you 19:09 Silent retreats and the first ceremony 23:58 The book that led to the Amazon 31:12 Ecuador and Don Basilio 36:10 Don Cesario, 115 years old 41:20 Good at acupuncture, still broke 43:38 Punk, anti-establishment, and Chinese medicine 51:08 Spirit before self-will Find Julian on Instagram: @juliankeenangrow Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@davidmartinbernard?sub_confirmation=1

    Dr. Julian Grow MSTOM, LAc.: "They Almost Took My Leg"

  2. Oct 8

    Dr. Ron Sandoval LAc.: Why Men Over 50 Stall, and the System That Fixes It

    Dr. Ron Sandoval is a licensed acupuncturist, the founder of Mosaic Wellness in Melville, NY, and a man who has lifted weights since he was sixteen. At 54 he says he is the strongest he has ever been, and he opened his clinic a year ago and watched it take off. But none of that is why this conversation matters. What matters is that Ron is one of the few practitioners saying out loud what men in their 50s say to no one: you feel tired, you feel heavy, your back hurts when you get out of bed, and the only thing anyone offers you is a prescription for the symptom. He is building the alternative from the treatment room up. What we cover: Why the idea that 50 is the beginning of the downhill is a story men tell themselves, and the daily habits Ron uses to refuse it.The “piecemeal” trap: why a peptide you saw online, a pinch of salt in your water and a promise to wake up early don’t add up to a plan, and why a system you can actually follow beats all of them.The exact routine, with numbers: a gym session before work, 180 to 190 grams of protein at 200 pounds, three cold-water plunges a week, and 15 minutes in the sauna four or five days a week, most of it done before he walks into the office at nine.Why “I don’t have time” is not an answer if you work an eight-hour day.What happens to a man who goes to his urologist with a problem he can’t talk about, and why Ron calls a pill taken right before you perform “taking a juice” instead of fixing the problem.Why guys will open up in a gym or with another guy who is already doing what they want to do, and why that’s how Ron’s men’s program started: a first appointment for shoulder pain, and a second conversation about everything else.The case study: a 55-year-old retiring school teacher who came in because his shoulder wasn’t improving and left, three months later, fifteen pounds lighter, without a GLP drug, pain-free, and a more present husband and father.And why Ron believes Joe on the corner can feel good at 55, and start the business he thought about at 35.This is Part 1 of three, and it is the conversation men over 40 need to hear before they accept the slide as normal. Guest: Dr. Ron Sandoval, L.Ac. — Mosaic Wellness ~ Melville, Melville, NY Work with Ron: https://www.mosaicwellnessli.com/ Instagram (Ron): https://www.instagram.com/ronsandovalhealth/ Instagram (Mosaic Wellness): https://www.instagram.com/mosaicwellnessli/ Text or call: 631-424-8601 Host: David Bernard — Dragon Fire.Sides / Clinic Dragon AI https://clinicdragon.ai About the show: Dragon Fire.Sides is a conversation series for acupuncturists and integrative practitioners about building the practice, the profession and the path. Subscribe: https://youtube.com/@davidmartinbernard?sub_confirmation=1

    Dr. Ron Sandoval LAc.: Why Men Over 50 Stall, and the System That Fixes It

  3. Oct 2

    The Cases They Called Hopeless: Dr. Yvonne Scarlett on Root-Cause Fertility Care

    Dr. Yvonne K. Scarlett, DACM, L.Ac, didn't set out to become a fertility specialist. Thirteen years of daily migraines and a medicine cabinet that wasn't working led her to Chinese medicine almost by accident in 2004 — and six sessions later, she woke up without a headache for the first time in over a decade. That one result pulled her out of a stable engineering career and into a doctorate in Chinese medicine, eventually landing her in the one corner of practice she didn't expect: helping women who had been told they couldn't have children. In this conversation, David sits down with Dr. Scarlett, founder of Red Lotus Wellness Center, to talk about what it actually looks like to hold hope for a patient without promising her an outcome — what Dr. Scarlett calls being "hope tired." They get into the real mechanics of her practice: what she's actually looking for when a woman comes in after a low AMH diagnosis or a failed IVF cycle, why the male partner is involved in roughly 40% of fertility cases but almost never shows up to treatment, and why "unexplained infertility" is a starting point, not a verdict. The conversation also goes somewhere neither of them planned — into the placebo effect, the burden and privilege of carrying patients' outcomes home with you, and a direct conversation about racial bias in women's healthcare, sparked by David sharing his own family's experience of being dismissed by a doctor during his wife's pregnancy. This is the first of at least two conversations with Dr. Scarlett — there was more to get into than one episode could hold. In this episode: How thirteen years of chronic migraines led an engineer into a doctorate in Chinese medicineWhat "root cause medicine" actually means in practice — "I'm like a PI, I'm digging for the missing piece"What it's like to sit across from a woman who's been told she can't have childrenLow AMH: why a number isn't a prophecyWhat Dr. Scarlett looks for after two or three failed IVF cycles that the fertility clinic didn't catchWhy the male partner is involved in ~40% of fertility cases — and why he almost never shows upThe placebo effect, "holding hope," and the real cost of carrying patients' outcomes homeA candid conversation about racial bias in women's healthcareGuest: Dr. Yvonne K. Scarlett, DACM, L.Ac — Red Lotus Wellness Center, Carlsbad, CA. RedLotusWellnessCenter.com Host: David Bernard, Dragon Fire.Sides / Clinic Dragon AI

    The Cases They Called Hopeless: Dr. Yvonne Scarlett on Root-Cause Fertility Care

  4. Sep 17

    Dr. Kassie Sorokach DAcCHM, MAOM, BHSc, Dipl. OM, CFMP: Warm Feet, Happy Qi

    Dr. Kassie Sorokach came up working for a neurologist, watching patients get funneled through the same medications and the same follow-ups with zero individualization to any of it. That's what pushed her toward Chinese medicine. She financed her way out of a single rented room and into her own building on her mother's credit card, because four and a half years of living in an RV with her family had wrecked her credit too badly to qualify for a loan herself. Then a video about wearing socks to bed changed everything. In just over a year she grew from that single room into her own building — a full team, an aesthetician, a student clinic. Alongside it she built a second business: an online coaching program with her own coaches underneath her, running close to 200 clients. Since January, one revenue stream in that business alone has cleared $852K. What she'll tell you is that none of it happened because she softened the medicine for a wider audience. It happened because she stopped translating it. This conversation goes deep on the split running through TCM right now — practitioners who think they have to speak the language of allopathic medicine to earn a seat at the table, versus practitioners like Kassie who lean all the way into TCM terminology instead, because naming the pattern out loud keeps her inside her scope, not outside it. She talks about the carousel format that actually converts versus the reels that just rack up views, why she has her own acupuncture students building a social media presence before they graduate, and her blunt read on an industry in crisis: people go to who they resonate with, and the acupuncturists who are struggling are the ones who never learned to sell a transformation instead of a session. She also gets candid about the RV years — two kids, four cats, crying on a call with David just trying to get her software set up because she was so far past her capacity — and what building both businesses at once actually cost her at home.

    Dr. Kassie Sorokach DAcCHM, MAOM, BHSc, Dipl. OM, CFMP: Warm Feet, Happy Qi

  5. Jun 25

    Dr. Cleo Amelia AP, CFMP: Don't Gatekeep the Medicine

    Dr. Cleo Amelia came up through chronic illness — Lyme disease, autoimmune struggles, the long road that eventually led her to a doctorate in acupuncture and Chinese medicine. She opened a clinic, added functional medicine, built something real. Then she found the online space and everything changed. In two and a half years she closed her in-person practice, built a functional medicine coaching company with eight practitioners under her, launched a second business coaching health and wellness practitioners, and hasn't looked back. What she'll tell you is that none of it happened in spite of the medicine. It happened because of it. This conversation goes deep on why TCM practitioners are the most resistant group to go online — and why that resistance might be the thing that kills the profession. Cleo talks about ideal client messaging, the difference between selling sessions and selling transformation, the mindset work that almost nobody wants to do but everybody needs, and why if you have a gift and you're not putting it out there, she finds that selfish. She also gets candid about her own anxiety at the peak of her success — and the hypnotherapy that helped her understand where it was coming from.

    Dr. Cleo Amelia AP, CFMP: Don't Gatekeep the Medicine

  6. Jun 8

    Dr. Jordan Barber, DAOM: Stop Translating the Medicine Into a Language That Can't Hold It

    Dr. Jordan Barber is a Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, bestselling author, pelvic floor specialist, and owner of multiple practices in New York. He took his most recent cash-based practice from zero to full and high six figures in eight months. But none of that is why this conversation matters. What matters is that Jordan is one of the rare practitioners who has actually metabolized the medicine — not as a clinical system to deploy, but as a path of cultivation that informs everything from how he needles to how he builds a business to how he moves through the world. What we cover: Why the retreat from energetic language isn't a sign of clinical maturity — it's a profession-wide crisis of confidence dressed up as pragmatism. What the Nei Jing actually says about the arrival of qi and why that should be the organizing principle of every treatment, regardless of technique. The three tiers of practitioner described in the classics and the 13th century commentary that noted most practitioners believe themselves to be at the top when they are decidedly not. Why graduating as a generalist is a positioning problem before it is ever a marketing problem, and how finding your specific clinical obsession changes everything downstream. The zheng principle — uprightness — as both a clinical and entrepreneurial foundation, and why moving from a position of power is the only sustainable path in either domain. Why scattering qi into borrowed modalities and weekend certifications is the same root pattern presenting in your treatment room every day. And the only two diagnostic questions that matter when building a practice from the ground up. This is the conversation the profession needs to be having with itself.

    Dr. Jordan Barber, DAOM: Stop Translating the Medicine Into a Language That Can't Hold It

  7. Jun 1

    Dr. Rosanna de la Cruz, DACM, L.Ac.: The Perimenopause Symptoms Nobody Warned You About

    Dr. Rosanna de la Cruz is a Chinese medicine doctor, functional medicine practitioner, and owner of three women's health clinics in the New York area. She specializes in reproductive health and has spent her career helping women reclaim vitality, energy, and joy — particularly through perimenopause and beyond. She is also living proof that the second spring is real. In this conversation, David and Rosanna go deep on what women are being told is normal — and what isn't. What we cover: Why most doctors refuse to test hormones during perimenopause and what that's actually costing women. The symptoms nobody talks about — vagus nerve dysregulation that mimics fainting, and nighttime heart palpitations that look like anxiety but are driven entirely by cortisol. Why a ferritin level of 5 gets sent home with a clean bill of health — and what it's actually doing to your hair, energy, and quality of life. The troubling history of gynecology and how unconscious bias still shapes the care women of color receive today, from dismissed pain to disproportionate hysterectomy rates. Why the combination of acupuncture, herbal medicine, functional medicine, and lifestyle change is not optional — it's the whole point. And what it actually means to determine your own normal and refuse to settle for anything less. This episode is for practitioners who want a sharper clinical lens on women's health, and for any woman who has ever sat in a doctor's office and been told to just deal with it.

    Dr. Rosanna de la Cruz, DACM, L.Ac.: The Perimenopause Symptoms Nobody Warned You About

  8. May 27

    Dr. Jeff Rippey, LAc: Western Medicine Erased Homeopathy. Acupuncture Could Be Next.

    Dr. Jeff Rippey has been a martial artist, anthropologist, and is an acupuncturist with over 40 years in the arts, time studying in China, and a rural Missouri practice running 115–120 treatments a week on under $5,000 a month in overhead. He reached out after watching a previous Dragon Fireside episode — and he had some things to say. In this conversation, David and Jeff pull no punches on the real state of the acupuncture profession. What we cover: Why the push toward insurance billing is a losing battle — and why the profession should stop fighting it. The geographic concentration problem: 44% of US acupuncturists practice in just three states, and what that means for any national advocacy effort. The homeopathy warning — a detailed historical parallel for what happens when alternative medicine gets absorbed into the mainstream medical system without protection. Why the apprenticeship model and rural relocation may be the most underutilized tools in the profession. What it actually looks like to build a thriving cash practice in a town of 70,000 people with a two-week waitlist. And why the last two weeks of every month are pure profit. This is one of the most strategically honest conversations to appear on Dragon Fire.Side. If you're in practice, considering school, or trying to figure out a path that actually works — this episode is required listening.

    Dr. Jeff Rippey, LAc: Western Medicine Erased Homeopathy. Acupuncture Could Be Next.
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About

Clinic Dragon ÀI Founder David Bernard discusses integrative medicine modalities and the challenges and alchemy required to running profitable clinics

Information

  • Creator
    David Bernard
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    19
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 David Bernard
  • Show Website
    Dragon Fire.Sides