I would like to take this opportunity and thank Dr. Juli Kramer the founder and owner of Radiant Shenti, LLC for creating this scholarship opportunity for us students. And I would like to be considered for this scholarship. In addition if possible, I would also like to meet Dr. Juli Kramer in person to find out more about her journey and the Wellness Visionary. My name is Liubov Serifoglu and I am a senior a student in Florida College of Integrative Medicine. My journey with eastern medicine started when my husband started suffering from severe back pain originated from a herniated disc. He has tried several western medicine treatment methods to help with his pain but nothing was effective besides acupuncture. It was a very happy moment for both of us to see him without pain and we were very grateful to eastern medicine for improving the quality of his life. This incident also attracted my interest and I decided to study eastern medicine to reach out to more people who are suffering from pain and who can also benefit from acupuncture and eastern medicine. In addition, I also want to prove to the society that even though acupuncture is often associated with pain management, it can also be useful for other conditions such as mental health conditions including but not limited to depression, anxiety, PTSD, and wellness indicators such as insomnia, digestive issues, auto-immune disorders. I can never deny the benefits of western medicine in alleviating the symptoms of a lot of diseases but it can also create undesirable side effects and addiction to prescription drugs and opioids. It is my mission to introduce the eastern medicine to as many people as I can in the US and that includes but not limited to acupuncture, herbs, qigong, tui-na massage, moxibustion, and cupping. I have always been a firm believer and a supporter of integrative medicine. One of my goals is to raise awareness to the health benefits and natural treatment methods of eastern medicine and help people avoid the synthetic pharmaceuticals and surgeries as much as possible. In certain cases, I want the society to be aware that acupuncture and eastern medicine may even be effective as a stand-alone treatment. I just completed my second year studies at Florida College of Integrative Medicine in Orlando Florida and I will graduate next year in June of 2025. So far I managed to have a grade point average of 4.0 out of 4.0 and I had the chance to treat 150 patients as a junior treater and 60 patients so far as a senior treater at the school's clinic. As I treated more and more patients and as I kept seeing the positive results, I became an even stronger advocate of eastern medicine. After I graduate and get my license to practice acupuncture, I am planning to pursue a doctorate degree in acupuncture and oriental medicine. This will allow me to get actively involved in research work and clinical trials. I am a strong believer that patients will benefit a lot using an integrative approach, but I also understand that we are still lacking enough research to effectively support this statement. Being diagnosed myself with PTSD, anxiety disorder and an auto-immune conditions and witnessing how integrative and herbal medicine helped me in my healing journey (I am in remission as of right now) provides me even more inspiration to pursue this route. Furthermore, I am also very interested in getting engaged with the clinical studies in measuring the effectiveness of the acupuncture and integrative medicine treatment plans on the patients who are suffering from chronic pain, neurological and psychiatric conditions, chronic illnesses and who are not responding to traditional therapies, including pharmaceuticals. I want to contribute to the opinion that eastern medicine will help with eliminating or significantly reducing the dependance on pharmaceuticals for pain management depression, anxiety, sleep issues, memory problems, chronic fatigue and other health issues which can hinder greatly the daily quality of life. Last but not least I want to get actively involved in the research opportunities in oncology acupuncture to help with pain, improvement of well-being, and reduction of the side effects of cancer treatments such as chemotherapy, radiation and surgery and even to go as far as using acupuncture and herbal medicine a standalone treatment. I am willing to provide more clinical evidence on all the above-mentioned points with my research and clinical work if I am given a chance. For example, I am a strong believer that fungi carrying 4 billion years old genetic material are holding a lot of answers for currently incurable disorders. Besides giving us antibiotics in the 20th century which saved hundreds of millions of lives, they are still holding a lot of health benefits which are yet to be discovered, and we barely scratched the surface of their medicinal potency. After I graduate, my priority will be to look for a job in a hospital system which will encourage and promote the research programs I am very passionate about. I will be very happy if I get awarded this scholarship but even if not it was very inspiring to find out about Radiant Shenti, Dr. Juli Kramer's journey and wellness visionary. And I want to thank Dr. Juli Kramer once again for creating this opportunity to support students in their pursuit of alternative and holistic health studies.