A few decades ago, acupuncture was not a modality one expected US military healthcare to embrace. For most non-Asian Americans, it was more the stuff of myth than a reality of medical practice.

Colonel Richard Charles Niemtzow, MD, PhD, MPH, did much to change that. Over his long and admirable career, he worked tirelessly to advance the clinical practice of acupuncture within the military as well as out in civilian life.

Best known for the development of a method he named Battlefield Acupuncture—an auricular needling technique aimed at quickly mitigating pain in conflict settings—Niemtzow also played a key role in establishing contemporary research methods to study this ancient healing method.

Niemtzow died on February 2, a few months short of his 83^rd birthday. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Simple, portable, inexpensive, and requiring minimal training, Battlefield Acupuncture was quickly embraced by Air Force, the Veterans Administration, and other branches of the military for acute and chronic pain management.

Richard Charles Niemtzow was born in Philadelphia. He studied medicine at the Universite de Montpellier, France, receiving his MD degree in 1976, after which he moved back to the US for a residency in radiation oncology at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston.  He joined the US Air Force Medical Service in 1980, shortly after completing his clinical training, and continued his military service until his retirement in 2010, earning the rank of Colonel.

An Open, Inquiring Mind

Niemtzow’s first exposure to acupuncture was during his time at Universite de Montpeillier, where he became aware of Dr. Paul Nogier’s auriculotherapy. His interest deepened in the early 1990s, as he sought effective, non-toxic, non-addictive methods to attenuate the debilitating pain and the side-effects that many of his cancer patients were experiencing.

In 1994, he became one of the first MDs to enroll in the then-new Medical Acupuncture for Physicians courses founded by Dr. Joseph Helms originally hosted at UCLA. These programs, specifically designed for conventionally-trained MDs and DOs, provided practical acupuncture training in a contemporary biomedical research context. For Niemtzow, it was a turning point. What he learned opened an entirely new way of viewing illness and health, and of practicing medicine.

Following Helms’ lead, he soon became one of the most outspoken advocates for a wider embrace of acupuncture to treat acute as well as chronic pain conditions, especially within the military.

By 1997, he was among the leaders of the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture, serving as Editor-in-Chief of the group’s journal, Medical Acupuncture, a position he held until his final days.

Origins of Battlefield Acupuncture

In 2001, Niemtzow began developing the Battlefield Acupuncture methods for which he later became so widely known. The techniques involve use of very small needles inserted into specific points on the pinnae of the ear, and left in place for 3-5 days.  When stimulated, these points activate areas in the brain—specifically in the cingulate gyrus and thalamus—that are involved in pain processing.

“There are people who still doubt this and I think they always will – but for us who are in the clinic every day, we see people suffering from the war and from this or that and there’s nothing left to offer them. And we can put 50-cent needles in an individual’s ear, and they look at you and smile and say, ‘my God, I feel better!”’

–Col. Richard Niemtzow

Niemtzow was honest in admitting that while neurological studies pointed to certain brain regions and neural pathways, in truth the mechanisms by which auricular acupuncture mitigated pain were not entirely known. But long clinical experience showed that the technique does do something.

Simple, portable, inexpensive, and requiring minimal training, Battlefield Acupuncture was quickly embraced by Air Force, the Veterans Administration, and other branches of the military for acute and chronic pain management.

It was especially appealing to high-ranking officers who were acutely aware of rampant opioid addiction among active military personnel as well as veterans. In many cases, those addictions began when opioid drugs were prescribed to treat chronic pain. There was a glaring need for alternative approaches, and many generals knew it.

Niemtzow and his colleagues had something meaningful to offer. The medical acupuncture clinic Niemtzow established at Andrews Air Force Base quickly became a source of pride for the Pentagon.

To be sure there were naysayers, and Niemtzow was not afraid of them. Gerhard Litscher, a Swiss researcher who worked closely with Niemtzow on several acupuncture studies, said the Colonel was not particularly troubled by his critics.

Niemtzow told Litscher: “There are people who still doubt this and I think they always will – but for us who are in the clinic every day, we see people suffering from the war and from this or that and there’s nothing left to offer them. And we can put 50-cent needles in an individual’s ear, and they look at you and smile and say, ‘my God, I feel better!”’

After a time, Col. Niemtzow refined and rebranded the techniques as Rapid Acupuncture, with the broad goal of providing, “the latest innovative acupuncture therapy techniques to patients who have not responded to traditional Western medicine.”

He established training programs to teach clinicians how to utilize the method for treatment of complex pain, PTSD, and side effects from cancer treatments, especially dry mouth. Some clinicians are using rapid acupuncture to treat macular degeneration, tinnitus, and post-COVID anosmia.

Over the course of his long career, Col. Niemtzow served as a member of the National Institute of Health’s National Advisory Council for Complementary and Alternative Health, and represented the United States Air Force Medical Service at the NATO Committee on Integrative Medicine. He served as President of the AAMA from 2009-2011, and during his career, he coordinated and led four different military-medical acupuncture exchange trips to China.

He was working and teaching until the very end of his life. In his final days, while in intensive care at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, he shared his perspectives on the essential heart of medicine with his wife, Songxuan Zhou Niemtzow, herself a physician with extensive training in traditional Chinese medicine. She published these final reflections as A Message From and For the Xingling (Heart) of Medicine in the February 14 edition of Medical Acupuncture.

Col. Niemtzow was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. He is survived by his wife Songxuan, his three children Angelina, Elisa, and Michael (and spouse, Jennifer), three grandchildren– Leonie, Benjamin, and Alexander, his sister, Helen, his first wife, Jacqueline Breda, and many thousands of grateful patients, students, and colleagues.

END