Meet Our Team
Who We Are
Our Mission
At Universal Family Wellness Clinic we believe that the future of medicine must follow the direction of the people being served. In urban areas, specifically Los Angeles, we have seen the increasing incidence of stress related disease, and the increasing costs of healthcare. With these downfalls, we firmly believe that people have opened their hearts, minds and bodies to integrating Traditional Chinese Medicine and Integrative Bio-medicine into our culture of medicine and healing.
Acupuncture and Chinese medicine gives us the opportunity to prevent stress related disease and to increase our quality life. We are not alone, and we cannot heal alone. This is why Universal Family Wellness Clinic is dedicated to answering the call of the people, and acting as conduits for inter-personal change within a community. We also believe that combining the incredible advances in technology and bio-medicine, with the ancient wisdom and modern bio-physics understanding of Traditional Oriental Medicine we create a whole bigger that the sum of its parts.
About Us
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Universal Family Wellness Clinic was started by the husband and wife team Brooke and Michael Niss in 2010. Brooke and Michael are both Los Angeles natives but actually met their first day of graduate school in 2006 at Bastyr University in Washington. They both had a passion for equitable and integrative medicine, public health, and for growing gardens.
They went through their entire Masters of Science in Acupuncture and Chinese medicine program together to become board certified, licensed acupuncturists and herbalists. In the process they managed the extensive Chinese medicine gardens at Bastyr University, received a research grant to travel to Cuba to study healthcare systems, and worked in hospitals in Shanghai, China. -
Brooke and Michael wrote their first business plan for Universal Family Wellness Clinic in 2008, and in it they detailed something they called the “Middle Model”. They were hoping to create a private practice, integrative health clinic, with a sliding pay scale and medicine gardens on site. Their goal was to increase accessibility to acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine and holistic care for more diverse communities.
Now, in 2023 Brooke and Michael work with an incredible team of highly experienced, practitioners and have expanded the clinic to include functional medicine diagnostics, and demonstration gardens on site. The clinic utilizes the “Middle Model” sliding payscale that was detailed in their first business plan. Brooke and Michael have found that offering affordable, integrative medicine not only serves all members of the community regardless of class, gender, sexuality, race and background but it creates wonderful and lucrative jobs for practitioners as well.
Brooke and Michael live with their family in Echo Park. They are immensely grateful to live and work in such an amazing community. -
Universal Family Wellness Clinic takes donates 1% of its profits to a local charity.
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Brooke Niss L.Ac. and Michael Niss L.Ac. designed every room of Universal Family Wellness Clinic with principles of feng shui and energy flow, the use of sustainable and low allergen building materials, and the necessity to create a clean, warm, and safe healing space. This is why we chose VOC Free (volatile organic compounds) paint that gives off no chemicals that often irritates the lungs and sinuses of those with asthma and allergies. We chose a recycled material under flooring, also low VOC. We invite you to please come and enjoy our clinic.
Our Practitioners
Brooke Niss, MS, L.Ac., Clinic Owner and Director
Michael Niss, MS, L.Ac., Clinic Owner and Director
Administrative, Support, & Botanical Lab Staff
Brooke Niss, MS, L.Ac., Clinic Owner and Director
In her undergraduate program at UC Santa Cruz, Brooke studied Political Science and Spanish. After college Brooke worked doing grassroots lobbying and while social justice work was her passion, she found herself angry at a system that was flawed. Brooke soon realized that being angry wasn’t helping anyone. It was then that she traveled extensively in Mexico and Central America where she worked and lived in communities that were more connected to cultivating their land and well-being. Brooke learned more in her travels about sustainability in food systems and health than she had ever before, and eventually this led her to move back to LA to become a Master Gardener with the hopes of having a positive, proactive impact on her community.
Soon after, she also got a job as the Executive Assistant at Emperor’s College of Chinese Medicine in Santa Monica. It was through her work at the school of Chinese medicine and her work at the community gardens that led Brooke to realize she needed to pursue a career in Acupuncture and Chinese medicine.
It also became clear to her during that time that she wanted to work to help empower communities back to the source of their food and medicine through growing plants, and offering affordable, integrative medicine.
In 2006, Brooke began studying in the Masters of Science in Acupuncture and East Asian Medicine program at Bastyr University in Seattle, WA. During her time there she managed the Chinese Medicinal Gardens at the school. She also completed externships at community acupuncture clinics, hospital in-patient clinics, low income and private practice clinics.
Brooke completed up to level 2 Craniosacral Therapy Certification, as well as the training in Community Acupuncture Models in Portland, Oregon. She also received a research grant to study the integration of Public Health and Urban Agriculture in post-revolutionary Cuba and published an article about her research. Brooke has traveled to China twice to study both herbal medicine traditions and acupuncture in hospital settings.
But one of the most influential elements of her time at Bastyr was meeting her husband Michael Niss, L.Ac. And thus, Universal Family Wellness Clinic was birthed from Brooke and Michael’s common passion for herbs, growing gardens and creating accessibility to integrative medicine.
When Brooke is not in the clinic, she loves to cook and eat good food, garden, be with her family, hike, run, surf, dance, camp, travel and hang with her friends.
Michael Niss, MS, L.Ac., Clinic Owner and Director
When I was young, I developed a significant pain in my lower back while on a swim team. My parents recommended I try acupuncture and it helped a lot. My acupuncturist, Dr. Ray Rubio, was also able to pinpoint how the pain developed in the first place by asking many questions about my swim technique. He gave me advice on how to swim differently that helped make it so the pain never came back. His treatment also included nutritional and lifestyle advice to help speed my recovery. This positive healing experience impressed and stayed with me as I moved though my education. When it came time to decide what kind of doctor to study to become, I knew I wanted to combine human's ancient and ongoing relationship with natural medicine with the modern diagnostic tools available today. After looking into as many types of medicine as I could, Acupuncture and East Asian Herbal Medicine spoke to me as the best way to accomplish this. I researched all the schools and picked Bastyr because of it's several acre herbal medicine and food garden and its amazing library.
I received a Masters of Science in Acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Medicine and a Bachelors of Science in Natural Health Sciences from Bastyr University in Kenmore, Washington. During my studies there, I was lucky enough to be part of a research team awarded a Venture Grant that sent us to Havana Cuba to study the integration of their department of Health and Department of Agriculture. Specifically their use of urban based sustainable gardens to grow food and botanical medicine. This trip instilled in me not just a greater passion for the universal language of plants but the necessity to focus on how and where our food and medicine is grown.
Amongst my clinic time at the Bastyr Center for Natural Health in Seattle Washington, I also pursued additional education experiences including specialty pediatric training and shifts, 3 years of Chinese Tui Na Body work therapy training, training in growing herbal medicine and medicinal mushrooms, HIV Clinic shifts, and Cancer Hospital shifts. (Bastyr is also where I met my now wife, Brooke Niss, L.Ac., who I later start UFWC with.)
At the end of my time at Bastyr, I went to Shanghai China to study in their integrated public setting. This trip showed me the true roots of this ancient medicine. It was experiencing the massive scale of how Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine is practiced along side western medicine in a hospital setting that confirmed for Brooke and I we must start a clinic that everyone in the community has financial access to. First, we needed a name. Family Wellness Clinic sounded good but we wanted to make sure that even in our name every type of person from every type of family knew they would be welcome. So, Universal Family Wellness Clinic was born in 2010 in Los Angeles California.
For 10 years now, I am Michael Niss, MSAOM, Licensed Acupuncturist, and Herbalist, at Universal Family Wellness Clinic where I am the Co-Director with my wife Brooke Niss, L.Ac. I could not love my job more. The challenges and triumphs and patients and everything about practicing acupuncture is the best. I feel honored that patients trust us with their care. I work hard to thoroughly listen to every one of my patients. I always strive provide patients with effective, concise care and a plan for prevention or long term solutions.
I also like to play music (bass), garden, and surf with Brooke and our 2 children.
I am excited to meet with you and help with your health goals.
Michael Niss, L.Ac.
UFWC Administrative, Support, & Botanical Lab Staff
At UFWC, we are honored to work with the most brilliant, kind and professional people in our front and back offices and our Botanical Lab.
Every one of these people contribute in such important ways to the overall vision and mission of the clinic, and create a wonderful space for healing for us all.
Work With Us
Schedule an appointment with one of our licensed practitioners to bring your body, mind and spirit into healthy balance.