dr. jacki

Hello - I'm Jacki.

Doctor of Acupuncture and East Asian Medicine, herbalist, and the practitioner and founder behind Living Yin Acupuncture.

I have spent my career doing one thing and doing it fully - supporting women through the most significant seasons of their reproductive lives. It is work I was drawn to through my own experience, and work I show up for every day with everything I have.

the philosophy of living yin

In East Asian medicine, yin and yang are the two fundamental forces that animate all of life.

Yang is action, function, output - the doing, the moving, the transforming, the producing.

Yin is the substance, receptivity, nourishment - the being, the restoring, the replenishing.

Modern life asks a great deal of our yang. We move quickly, produce constantly, and rarely pause long enough to tend to what sustains us. But yin and yang aren't opposites in conflict; They are partners, and each depends on the other. Yin nourishes and anchors yang, and yang warms and activates yin. When either is depleted or the balance is unchecked, the whole system feels it.

For some, it is yin that becomes chronically undernourished - the substance, the reserves, the deep rest that everything else draws from, the health of being. For others, it is the yang that falters - the warmth, the transformation, the vital spark that drives healthy function, the health of doing. In either case, the path back to ease runs through the same place. Tending to what has been neglected and restoring the conditions for balance.

Living Yin was born from the belief that nourishing your yin - your substance, your being - is medicine. It is the foundation from which everything else is built - your health, your fertility, your capacity to move through the thresholds and transitions of your life in a way that is nourishing rather than depleting.

To live yin is to honor both - the doing and the being, the action and the rest, the substance and the transformation.

My Story

My path to this work began in my own body.

I struggled for years with severe menstrual pain - the kind that was debilitating yet dismissed, managed with hormones, and largely left unexplained. In my search for something different, I found acupuncture. What followed was not just relief. It was the discovery of an entirely different way of understanding the body. One that made sense of things that conventional medicine had never been able to explain to me.

I was so moved by my experience with acupuncture that I changed the course of my life entirely. I left a career path in Speech Pathology and enrolled in graduate school for Acupuncture instead. I have never looked back.

I received my master's degree from Finger Lakes School of Acupuncture, graduating with honors in 2016. I went on to complete advanced herbal medicine credentialing at Won Institute of Graduate Studies, and then earned my doctoral degree from Pacific College of Health & Sciences.

For several years I worked part-time onsite at CNY Fertility - one of the region's leading reproductive medicine clinics - while simultaneously building Living Yin. That experience deepened my understanding of the western fertility landscape in ways that continue to inform my practice every day.

I have been in private practice since 2016, serving the Rochester community where I was born, raised, and have always called home.

continuing education & ongoing study

East Asian medicine is a living tradition. One that rewards a lifetime of study. I am committed to ongoing learning, regularly completing continuing education in areas including fertility, reproductive medicine, obstetrics, and advanced herbal medicine.

The field continues to evolve, and so does my practice. My patients benefit not just from years of clinical experience, but from a practitioner who is constantly refining, updating, and deepening her understanding of this medicine.

a little more about me

I live in a creekside cabin in the woods of the Bristol Hills with my partner Shamus, our cat, and two dogs who keep life wonderfully full. It is a place that offers a daily reminder that we are not separate from nature - that we are living pieces of a greater whole, subject to the same rhythms and seasons that govern everything else.

That reminder quietly informs everything I do in the clinic.

When I'm not in the treatment room you'll find me outdoors, at a local brewery, reading, or cheering for Buffalo sports. I am a Rochester native through and through. This community is not just where I practice - it is where I am rooted, and serving women here feels like exactly where I am supposed to be.

let's work together

If something here has resonated, and if you feel ready to explore this medicine, you can book directly online or reach out through the contact page if you have questions before you're ready to schedule. Either way, I'm glad you found your way here.