Office Hours with Angelique and Toby. Released March 22, 2026. 22 minutes.

Editor's note: This episode was recorded in March 2026, during early planning. Several details discussed here, including the program's length and structure, have since changed. For current information about the Chinese Medicine Benevolent Academy, visit cmbenevolentacademy.org.

About this episode

Recorded in March 2026, this conversation lays out an early version of the plan that became the Chinese Medicine Benevolent Academy: a nonprofit school built on an endowment rather than tuition dependence, software that reduces administrative cost, and community spaces in place of a fixed campus. Toby and Angelique discuss the financial pressures facing Chinese medicine schools, crowdfunding and support from practitioners and patients, and the timeline from concept to funded reality.

Topics

Financial challenges facing Chinese medicine schools
Endowment-based models
Software and AI for administration
Community classroom and clinic spaces
Building a durable nonprofit institution

A note for listeners: this is a conversation among practitioners, offered for education, not as medical advice. Patient details have been kept general to protect privacy.

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and lightly cleaned up. It may contain errors, especially in names and Chinese terms.

Toby: Hey Angelique, happy St. Patrick's Day. That's right, it's my middle name. So this is especially relevant for me today. My true name is Toby Patrick. It used to be O'Daly three generations ago. So pure Irish. You might have noticed from the complexion, just pure Irish. So, okay. I want to get started with a new feature on office hours. We have a new feature called our digital bulletin board.

Angelique: St. Patrick's Day to you

Toby: And on our digital bulletin board right now, we have a friend at the show, Kaysie Lingo. her office space is going to be available in Chicago Five treatment I believe. If this is, if you're watching this, pictures of will appear up here and like this. I visited this when I was teaching in Chicago, I visited her office. It's amazing. Right? it's kind of by the bean. It's a couple blocks from Lake and it's an old school Chicago building, right? You got to go up to like 50th floor or something like that. So it overlooks the city, all this treatment, things like that. is leaving and so she's like, wants people to know about it So that's that's on the bulletin board right now. I want to let people know about it. Really cool space. So okay, that's on the bulletin board. What about what's going on with you?

Angelique: I'm actually curious, does the bulletin board have a physical location that folks can look at?

Toby: It's a digital bulletin board. it's in a digital space. The same space that office hours occupies, this bulletin board is in that same space. So it'sort of everywhere and nowhere. Yeah, so it'll be here with us. It'll be in the show notes and things like that.

Angelique: In a digital space. So it's here with us. Okay, got it. Good.

Toby: Okay, what's the latest with you on this?

Angelique: Well, keep getting email updates after he had Ryan Hofer on with his sub stack. I was sent a recent article from woman from Poca Tech Lisa. Lisa, yes.

Toby: It starts with an R. I don't know how to pronounce her last name.

Angelique: And we won'try. anyway, read her most recent article. And so I'm just kind of, I don't know, feeling a little apprehensive about the way it's looking for the future of Chinese medicine education. Yeah.

Toby: It's on my mind as well. And I think I have a response to it. I'm developing it right now with the team and hopefully you can be part of this team going forward. the problem with Chinese medicine is money, right? The most fundamental problem is all medical schools always started with an endowment, like Stanford, imagine Johns Hopkins, MD Anderson. Harvard, it all starts with an endowment. And then so then you don't put all the burden on the students, right? But Chinese medicine schools aren't like that, right? They come in and they just, have to just keep as they increase the administration of the school and have the campus and everything like that. They just put all the debt onto the students, right? Ryan was explaining this to us. So the problem with Chinese medicine is money. Chinese medicine itself is beautiful. And so helpful for millennia. So Chinese medicine itself doesn't have the problem. It's how it's being delivered. That is what has the real problem for Chinese medicine. So my idea is a new model for Chinese medicine education. Again, we can't like tinker with a current model. It's unsustainable. And again, if you follow Lisa or Ryan's work, it's basically going to be obliterated, right? It sounds like a big word, but basically that's what's going to happen. Chinese medicine in its current configuration is going to be obliterated starting in July of this year. And then by 2028, that's kind of a cutout for the debt loan caps, right? So you have to prove that by going to Chinese medical school, that you can actually benefit to at least doesn't harm you financially. Currently, it's better if you went to high school and just had a high school diploma. you make more money than if you go to Chinese medicine school and get a master's degree or even doctorate. It's the worst financial mistake you can make. Again, Ryan Hofer explained this to us before, but it just really hit home for me. I've been thinking about ever since that interview. And so I kept thinking over and over again, somebody has to do something. my God, Chinese medicine, somebody has to do something. It just kept coming over in my head over and over again. And then eventually hit me maybe myself and a team. do something. Maybe we could respond to this. The key thing is money. So the key thing that we need to do is change how everything goes. Like I started to say the endowment, right? We have to start with an endowment. For Chinese medicine schools, they never start this way. But I think in the future, we need some money to be able to operate from so you don't put it on the students. My idea is successful patients, people that have really benefited from Chinese medicine as patients, they might want to contribute to that. So I've done an N of one study so far. I approached one of my patients who's moderately successful in finance and things like that, and asked if they would be considering contributing to an endowment for Chinese medicine school, a new model. I explained a little bit about the problems and my idea for a solution, and she immediately donated. $25,000. and said, we'd like to do more ongoing forward. So again, basically I just need 19 more people with that level. And then, and then this program will go, which again, just based on the end of one, hopefully that can go. So the endowment will come from, patients that have been financially successful and want to continue Chinese medicine. as we know it, right? Again, all the other medical schools have always done this with an endowment, so we need that. And then also, this is a little bit of call out to all those successful Chinese medicine practitioners that don't want this pipeline of Chinese medicine to be cut off for other people, then also they can contribute to that. So again, then we have this endowment, and then we can start with the school. So again, we start on really solid footing because we start with this endowment. My idea of endowment should be about 500 grand. Okay, again, so it'substantial enough to sustain anything. If anything happens, the school doesn't just close or something that there's a substantial endowment. Going forward, the school itself, we got to cut it problems looking at from first principles, right? The expensive things for school is administration and the campus. traditionally, these are fixed and we just can't do anything about it. But actually, since it's 2026, administration can be almost completely replaced with software. I'm working with a developer right now. He was a software engineer for Uber and he's going to help me an administration that's almost completely replaced with software. Again, that's inexpensive, efficient, quick. for accreditation, you have to have a team that takes months to put together accreditation, report and everything so that they know what's going on. takes a few moments with AI. So again, it's just an immediate financial savings by the administration being AI and software. And it's really doable because 2026, however things going, that's not like hopeful. mean, we're building this right now. So that's really good for that part of it. Can you see that in your mind right now? You take all those salaries that usually play, that don't really add to the educational component for

Angelique: Okay.

Toby: The Chinese medical students, The admin, if it's replaced with AI, it just doesn't harm their education at all. It only helps it. then it's, again, back at the envelope calculation, huge savings, right? By doing that with software instead of administration.

Angelique: Question about that, though. Who's double checking it to make sure it's doing its job, right?

Toby: Again, I'm putting together a board for this. And then we have human people. Again, we have our tech expert. His name's Anton, right? Just so we can put a name to it. He's amazing. And then also my office manager who is usually working on my clinical work. She's also going to be looking at this. So there's going to be humans in the loop, but AI is going to be doing all the grunt work. All this stuff that, again, it used to take months to compile. That'll be done by AI and then double checked by humans, really competent humans. So yeah, that's the important part for me too. Like, yeah, we can't make AI slop. We have to make AI something significant. And again, so humans in the loop will be really helpful for that. And AI, looks like we'll just get more and more competent as the hours go by. So that'll be less and less human involvement. But again, there'll always be some type of human involvement.

Angelique: Okay. To be the devil's advocate, what would you say to people who are appalled at the thought of replacing human beings with AI for this purpose?

Toby: It's grunt work. Okay. So all those people that would be those like cubicle jobs in the school, everyone was so depressed that worked those cubicle jobs at my Chinese medical school. don't know about yours. It was such a depressing job. All those people could potentially be clinicians instead, which is such more rewarding work. You know, again, we just take the grunt workout and then, and then we can do, you know, much more fulfilling work rather than just doing, you know, like those reports and things like that. heard legends of a how difficult that was to compile those reports that were needed for credit. Again, they need it because you have to tell them what you're doing to maintain your accreditation, but it'so much better rather than wasting human time. You could just have software do it.

Angelique: Okay, I can see that as acceptable. is quieted for the moment.

Toby: Okay, again, I, you and I have talked about this before. I also was a real AI skeptic. I was actually afraid of AI and then skeptical. And now I feel like I'm a careful user of artificial intelligence, right? Being really careful for what it can do and what it can't do. But again, if it can take away human drudgery. I'm all for it. And it looks like in this case, so far, looks like it's going well. Again, we are building this, so we're not just going to theorize about this. As you and I speak, we're building this right now.

Angelique: OK, so then how would you imagine the clinical coursework going, both classroom theory-based learning and then the hands-on training?

Toby: That's the next really expensive part of Chinese medical school. So the administration was a huge chunk. And then also having a fixed campus that'sometimes empty, right? Like at night, weekends, you know, basically you're not using it all the time. So my idea is to make pop-up things, pop-up clinics just as needed and then pop-up classroom as needed. Otherwise things are on Zoom.

Angelique: So when you say like a pop-up, that we would organize and find space kind of ad hoc.

Toby: Yes, I've already got the idea starting, right? Again, we'll start with a really small cohort just to stress test this. And then, mean, it potentially unlimited what we could do. Again, I think it's probably better if we can prove this model that people can take this and duplicate it throughout the country. As the traditional models fall apart, then people could take what we're, for sure we'll make mistakes, right? So again, all the learnings we can do, we could just pass on and the future for people, but we have to move pretty quick for this. I feel a little bit like I was asleep for this crisis. And then when I woke up to it, I feel I understand the house is burning, right? So I'm quite a bit late to this, but now I'm fully engaged and fully active in trying to solve this problem.

Angelique: Yeah, and it seems that opportunities are presenting themselves pretty incredibly to you.

Toby: I kind of, the last thing I want to do is start a Chinese medical school. But I love, I love this profession so much. Yeah. And, part of my time building up to this is I asked so much people to try and talk me out of it. No one was able to yet. I have one more person that's going to try, this afternoon to try and talk me out of this. But again, I, this is the last thing I want to do. I thought maybe somebody else will solve this. But I think I may be in a uniquely well-suited place to solve this, though I don't want to. I love the profession, so will, I'm gonna try my best. So start out with, yeah, let me give you concrete things. clinic I'm in right now has three treatment rooms and we could possibly make a fourth one. So again, that would be a great way to start. Again, the first cohort will be really, we're going test it. We're going to keep it to 10. So that's easy to do with a four treatment room. I use just Monday, Wednesday and Friday. So Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday. especially for the first cohort, they'll just be observing. So all the current patients I have that are used to interns coming, again, we'll just do that same model. So they can come in and observe in the clinic for that first year or just be observing. But then eventually, while they expand this out a little bit, the clinic I have by me, it's just opening a new campus that's gonna have tons more space compared to what they've had before. I know the director for there. And so we may be able to have people work there. Also, there's an emergency room I know the emergency room director for. We may have people to be able to emergency room. There's a hospice by me. There's just tons of options. There's a new retirement home that's run by Zen Quakers. It's amazing. And so again, there's tons of partnerships available here. In addition, as we need classrooms, the area right next to me, I'm looking out the window at it right now, is this beautiful home from the 1890s. And that's available as a VRBO. So as needed for the didactic things like point location and things like that where you have to be in person. that can be available. And then again, there's no cost when it's not being used. So we'll reserve it beforehand, because we'll know nine months to a year before when we'll need that, reserve it, and then it just goes away when we're not using it. It's $5.75 a night. So again, we use it for one or two days and then it's gone. So again, this is substantial savings because nothing's ever sitting there. And there's no, you don't need insurance on it. There'so many things that are needed, right, for the brick and mortar school. by abolishing that and just pop up as needed didactic classroom space or clinic space, again, we can just start right here. So that's actually no fee for the school. already have this space. It's already underutilized kind of by design. I like to have a little bit of space, but willing to the space away shot at really helping Chinese medicine education.

Angelique: And so for now, it would be on the West Coast.

Toby: Well, yeah, I have to start where I am, right? These things are all in place for me. And I know this area really well. But like I said, especially if we can prove this model or if people just want to discuss this model and maybe start something by them, I feel like we're going to need a lot of people on this team. I'm not going to, this is not going to, this is, this is a wide open master plan, right? So this is the master plan I have again, I'm going to pivot. I've already done several times, right? As I get more and more information as I learn more, but this is the overall. idea, right? Get a big endowment, pop up as needed structures. this is a nonprofit entity. 501c3. So anybody else who already has incurred these debts. So this will be helpful for future practitioners of Chinese medicine. They won't come out with amazing amounts of debt. And then anyone who's already come out and just dragging down with that debt, we have that 10-year loan forgiveness. If you work for a nonprofit, will be a nonprofit. So this will help both paths. people that are coming into the profession, people that have gone into the profession the last couple of years, especially just drowning in debt. So it's a big life preserver I'm hoping to build it.

Angelique: I can feel how excited you are about it.

Toby: A little bit too excited. I'm trying to calm down a little bit about it because again, it's a lot of work and things like that. I'm already pretty heavily scheduled. So I'm going to have to jettison some other things if I do this. But anyways, it feels like the profession's top priority. I want to, actually I don't want to, but it feels like I'm compelled to be part of the solution. least take my best swing at the solution.

Angelique: It's interesting timing wise too, because I just had a local nurse reach out to me as a nurse interested in acupuncture school. And I'meeting with her on Friday and I was thinking to myself like, what am I going to tell her? You know, like, uh-oh, like school's in trouble.

Toby: Yeah, this one, I can't in good conscience, the last couple years been able to recommend a single person go to Chinese medical school. Yeah. It's unconscionable to do that. So again, I just, I really kept thinking this is someone else's problem. They're going to have to solve this. But now I feel like, since we haven't and the house is on fire, I'm going to try and put it out.

Angelique: Yeah, well that's exciting news. as things progress, I imagine.

Toby: Yeah. I like this. This is nice in this. I'm working in a journal of Chinese medicine article about this right now. So this would be more fleshed out and more clear really soon. But again, this is as it's emerging. One month ago, I would say there's no way I'm starting a Chinese medical school. And now it's 30 days later. And it just gets more compelling every day. So it looks like I'm starting a Chinese medical school. Ideally, it'll be a model for future Chinese medicine schools going forward.

Angelique: Do you know what you would like to call it?

Toby: Has the provisional name of Chinese Medicine Benevolent I thinking lot about like school, college or something like that. I'm not sure if it will be a master's degree. For me, that's not that important, right? They just need be able to be licensed and have the most basics of Chinese medicine and be able start safely and pass the board doesn't have to be a college. think academy, especially this is from Plato, right? about, just it's a place of learning, right? Of learning a skill. And that's my vision for this. Then you'll be able to come out of this three years later. We're penciling him in right now for $19,000 a year for three years. then you'll come out substantially less because again, and no administration.

Angelique: Less.

Toby: That's the huge, again, there was no way to get rid of that until recently, right? I mean, you had to have those things, but so much flexibility now with VRBOs and things like that, AI, that you can do this. mean, when Chinese medicine absolutely needed it, there was paths going forward. So we'really lucky about the timing on this.

Angelique: Are you envisioning it to be a year round for three years program? So it would be similar to current structure of the quote unquote accelerated programs.

Toby: It would have to be. Yes. And how I have it now, you'll be able to sit for NCCAOM They just changed their name. I forget the acronyms for that, but also for CALE, the California Acupuncture Board too. So you'll be able to sit for one both of those through this program. So again, you could come from around the country and, you stay, you even have to be here because again, a lot of it would be online, but then certain times you'd have to be here in person, especially for clinical work and things like that. If you can make that flexible, you could go back and forth. Yeah, but so anyways, this is the idea for right now.

Angelique: That is exciting. The lot in one month's time to sounds like you went from nope, not doing that to having a fully formed, partially funded, connected plan.

Toby: Yeah, every idea and every problem that came up in my mind, my mind immediately came up with a really viable solution. So it was a little bit annoying because again, this is the last thing I want to do actually.

Angelique: And so, I don't know, my experience in life has been one those things when things happen with that level of ease and clarity, it'sort of, to me, it's always meant that I was on the right track. You know, even if it's not really what I wanted to do or what I envisioned myself doing, the path laid itself out.

Toby: Yeah, we'll see. Our show will be documenting the process as I go through this, And me and my team, as we go through this, right? We should be able to document a little bit of, hopefully hit some milestones on this show.

Angelique: Yeah, right in the wave authentically as it come up. Well, that sounds really great.

Toby: All right, so let's leave the show here for today and I'm going to get back to work building this thing, okay?

Angelique: Sounds good to me. We'll talk to you next time.

Toby: Okay, thanks everybody.

Angelique: Bye.