The History of ICOM Acupuncture Clinic

ICOM Clinic is the teaching clinic of the International college of Oriental Medicine, known to most as ICOM. ICOM was founded by Dr. J.D. van Buren in 1972 in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire but, as it expanded, a new building was found in East Grinstead, Sussex, in 1976. ICOM Clinic is part of the college, and serves as a teaching clinic for our students as well as being a highly respected professional Acupuncture clinic.

Before they can graduate, ICOM students must gain 400+ hours of clinic experience, all of which is gained in our clinic which offers very low cost, or sometimes even free, Acupuncture appointments to our local community. In this way, ICOM fulfils its long-standing mission to make high quality acupuncture treatment accessible to everybody.

We have several highly experienced professional Acupuncturists working from our clinic, many of whom have been practicing for decades. All of our practitioners trained at ICOM, which is accredited by the British Acupuncture Council, the UK’s leading professional body for the Acupuncture profession. The British Acupuncture Council is regulated and approved by the Professional Standards Authority for Health & Social Care (PSA). The PSA protects the public by overseeing the regulation and registration of healthcare professionals. So when you come to our Acupuncture clinic, you can be assured of the highest standards.

Who was our founder, Dr van Buren?

Born in 1921, to Dutch parents in Indonesia, van Buren was called up to serve in the Dutch army as a young man and at the age of 20, he became a prisoner of war of the Japanese for four years and was sent to a concentration camp in Java. The conditions were dreadful. Those who survived did so on what was known as a ‘rice sandwich’: rice in the morning, afternoon and evening. At one point, near to death, van Buren was treated by a local man who cured his dysentery. Inspired by this, in 1947 he moved to England and trained as a nurse. He went on to study naturopathy, osteopathy and homeopathy in London and subsequently worked as an osteopath.

Dr van Buren began his studies of Acupuncture in 1952, travelling around the world to gain as much knowledge as possible in this field. In 1969, he was awarded a Doctorate of Acupuncture in Taiwan as acknowledgement of his mastery of the subject. In 1972, he founded the International College of Oriental Medicine from his home in Gerrard’s Cross, Buckinghamshire, moving to the new premises on Green Hedges Avenue in East Grinstead in 1977 to accommodate the growing college. Thanks to his pioneering work at that time, other colleges were also founded in the Netherlands, Norway and Australia (now operating independently). For many years Dr. van Buren gave lectures at many different colleges, setting and maintaining teaching and clinical standards in acupuncture.

Dr. van Buren made the application of the Stems and Branches Acupuncture theory a practical reality at ICOM and this was his unique contribution to the teaching of Oriental Medicine. Knowledge of the Stems and Branches theory gives the student of Oriental Medicine an insight into the origin of disease at the deepest level. The International College of Oriental Medicine is the oldest Acupuncture training institution in the UK and this material is being constantly researched, developed and taught.

Dr van Buren passed away in 2003 but his legacy remains as strong as ever. In November 2022 ICOM celebrated the centenary of Dr van Buren’s birth and held its graduation ceremony on the same day.

In its long history, ICOM has been a major contributor to the development of Acupuncture in the UK. Fifty years of graduation photos appear on the beautiful staircase at van Buren House and many of today’s leading figures in the world of Acupuncture trained here including distinguished international lecturers and authors of Acupuncture and Chinese Medical textbooks used by students and practitioners around the world. Amongst them are Giovanni Maciocia, Roisin Golding, Peter Deadman, Sandra Hill and Royston Low.