I met Dr. Haley Parker a few weeks ago at the Cancer Nation Leadership Academy in Washington, DC. Within about five minutes of talking to her, I knew I wanted her on the podcast.
She’s an acupuncturist and runs clinical operations at the Virginia University of Integrative Medicine. She speaks with the kind of quiet authority that comes from years of sitting with patients who are terrified, exhausted, and just looking for something that makes them feel like a person again and not just a diagnosis.
We had a lot to talk about.
The moment that changed everything
Haley didn’t come into integrative oncology through a dramatic personal diagnosis. She got there through something subtler. She watched people come back to life in her treatment room.
She described it as watching muted people start to bloom again. Patients who had spent weeks and months white-knuckling their way from one scan to the next, keeping their chins up for their families, staying relentlessly positive until they had nothing left. And then she’d ask them a simple question. What’s going well? Tell me something good. And the lights would come back on.
That shift from disease-focused to person-focused is what pulled her deeper into this work and eventually into a bigger operational and advocacy role. She wanted to scale that moment. She wanted more people to have access to it.
I understand that completely.
The conversation nobody’s having
When I was going through treatment for Stage IV colorectal cancer, I asked my oncology team about complementary care fairly early on. I used acupuncture during treatment and found it genuinely helpful. It helped me manage side effects, sleep better, and feel like my body was still mine in some small way.
But I was also told not to use herbal medicines or certain supplements. For a long time I just accepted that without fully understanding why.
Haley helped me finally make sense of it. The caution isn’t about dismissing alternative medicine. It’s about drug-herb interactions, protecting the clarity of your bloodwork, and making sure nothing interferes with what’s fighting for your life. In my case, with cancer that had spread to my liver, my team needed clean numbers. They couldn’t afford anything muddying the picture.
Her advice to anyone navigating this: get your whole team talking to each other. Your oncologist, your integrative medicine provider, your East Asian medicine doctor. Not siloed. Together. Because the goal is the same on every side of that table. Keep you safe and get you through.
Where acupuncture fits in cancer care
Haley was careful not to overpromise or generalize. She’s a clinician and she knows every case is different. But she laid out a clear framework for where this kind of care can make a real difference.
During treatment, acupuncture can help manage side effects of chemo and radiation, reduce anxiety, and improve sleep. After treatment, it helps patients find their new normal and address long-term effects that sometimes don’t show up until months or years later. Hormone imbalances. Fatigue that won’t quit. That disorienting feeling of not quite living in your own body anymore.
She put it simply. The power that made the body heals the body. Our job is to get out of the way and let it do what it’s built to do.
As someone who takes immunosuppressants derived from plants, I don’t find that hard to believe at all.
Building something bigger
What Haley is most proud of right now is the partnership between VUIM and Life with Cancer in Northern Virginia. For three years, they’ve been bringing acupuncture services to cancer patients and caregivers through the Peterson Life with Cancer facility. Patients who’ve finished their active care at the Schar Center can keep receiving treatments from VUIM clinicians and supervised interns. Caregivers too. Even the doctors, nurses, and staff who show up every day carrying the weight of this work alongside their patients.
There’s also an externship with Memorial Sloan Kettering’s breast center in New Jersey, where students are doing hands-on integrative care at one of the most respected cancer centers in the country.
The testimonials she keeps coming back to are patients talking about something they actually look forward to. Not another appointment. Something that gives them a reason to get up and go.
That’s not a small thing. That’s everything.
If nothing stood in the way
I asked Haley my closing question. If money, time, and institutional gatekeeping were all off the table, what would she build or change first?
Her answer didn’t stay inside medicine.
She wants people to remember they’re human. To recognize how much more alike we are than different. To hold the door open, say thank you, extend a little more grace to the person standing next to them because you have no idea what’s going on inside their body or their head.
She also called out the inner critic. The version of herself that picks apart every decision and second-guesses every move. And she made the case for self-compassion with the same conviction she brings to patient care. Kindness starts inward. So does healing.
I’ve been thinking about that all week.
You can find Dr. Haley Parker and her team at vuimclinic.com. If you’re in Northern Virginia and want to explore integrative care, you can reach the clinic at 703-323-5690. For anyone interested in East Asian medicine as a field of study, check out vuim.edu. Find them on social by searching VUIM Clinic.
If any of this connects with where you are right now, whether you’re in treatment, in survivorship, or supporting someone who is, share this with them. And leave a comment below. I’d love to know if you’ve explored complementary care as part of your own journey.
Until next time.
— Tim
