Our Team
Effective medical care begins with trust.
At Village Acupuncture, we’re not just medical practitioners. We genuinely care. We take great pride in our exceptional team of board certified acupuncturists and herbalists. Led by Kim Trafton, we have been proudly serving southern Maine and seacoast New Hampshire for over 10 years. We believe in patient-centered compassionate care, with a commitment to ongoing education and the latest technologies to bring you the best our profession can offer.
We give you options, not lectures.
Dr. Christopher Germain, LAc, DACM
Christopher Germain earned a doctorate in acupuncture and Chinese medicine from Daoist Traditions College of Chinese Medical Arts, where he studied the practices of classical Chinese medicine taught by Jeffrey Yuen. Chris received his board certification as an acupuncturist, herbalist, and diplomate of oriental medicine from the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, and earned an advanced certification in oncology acupuncture from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Chris has practiced acupuncture and herbal medicine in the surgical unit of a hospital, a hospice center, a community clinic for the homeless, an addiction-treatment center for teens, and private sessions. Chris’s perspective and approach to acupuncture and Chinese medicine have also been informed by his experiences as a paramedic in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and as a firefighter and paramedic for the Reading Fire Department for ten years prior to his professional transition to acupuncture and herbal medicine.
Chris’s background in emergency medical services and his study of integrative medical practices have shaped him into a practitioner who strives to empower his patients and guide them through their unique healing process. Chris treats a wide variety of physiological and neurological disorders, including anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, insomnia, digestive problems, and other conditions.
We treat people, not just symptoms.
Amy Vlacich, MSOM, LAc, FABORM
Amy Vlacich Is a Licensed Acupuncturist and Chinese Herbalist specializing in holistic pain management, digestive health, and hormonal support for all ages and stages of life. She believes in the body's innate ability to heal itself and strives to support this natural process with acupuncture and herbal medicine. Despite her passion for women's health, Amy also loves to treat HEENT conditions such as headaches, allergies, sinusitis, vertigo, and TMJ.
Amy believes in a holistic approach to care, one that embraces all aspects of health: the emotional, physical, and spiritual. Her acupuncture treatments are integrative and multifaceted, often utilizing multiple hands-on therapies, such as moxibustion (heat therapy), fcupping (suction), gua sha (stone massage), and e-stim (electrical stimulation). She also offers at-home testing for food sensitivities and gut microbiome analysis upon request.
Amy earned her Master's of Science in Oriental Medicine (MSOM) at the Acupuncture and Integrative Medicine College in Berkeley, California. During her graduate studies, she interned at the San Francisco Homeless Prenatal Program, LifeLong Medical Care, and UCSF Mission Bay. She also studied at the First Teaching Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Tianjin, China where she learned acupuncture protocols for stroke rehabilitation and other neurological disorders. Since then, Amy has given over 14,000 acupuncture treatments in private and community practice in New Hampshire and Florida.
Amy is a certified Acupuncture Detoxification Specialist (ADS) and Fellow of the Acupuncture Board of Reproductive Medicine (FABORM), one of three fertility specialists in the entire state of Maine. She has spent the past five years working at an integrative family wellness center in Florida, but is happy to return home to New England where she grew up. In her free time, Amy enjoys hiking, paddling, dancing, yoga, poetry, and adventures with her velcro dog, Rosie.
Kim Trafton, LAc
Kim Trafton earned a master of science degree in acupuncture from the Swedish Institute College of Health Sciences, where she had the great honor and privilege of studying classical Chinese acupuncture under the tutelage of renowned scholar and practitioner Jeffrey Yuen. Over the past decade, Kim has continued her training with Yuen through his postgraduate courses on essential oils, pulse diagnosis, Chinese dietary therapy, and cancer care.
Kim was a featured acupuncturist in an ongoing study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, at Montefiore Medical Center at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York, that is evaluating the efficacy of acupuncture in treating chronic intractable pain. She has also worked at the AIDS Center of Queens County, where she treated HIV-positive and AIDS patients in various stages of disease progression, and at the Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center in the Bronx, where she was trained in the National Acupuncture Detoxification Association protocol for supporting patients experiencing addiction disorders and drug withdrawal.
During her tenure at a busy community clinic in Brooklyn, Kim gained invaluable experience treating a broad spectrum of conditions and disorders using acupuncture. She currently treats patients experiencing degenerative disease, chronic pain, cancer, and a wide range of neurological and mental health disorders.
If you are a patient of Kim’s, please call the office to schedule an appointment. Online scheduling is not enabled for her.
Rebecca Buttignol, LMT
With 35 years of experience as a licensed massage therapist, Rebecca discovered her passion for massage in 1987 while residing and working at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. Since then, she has dedicated herself to the path of holistic healing, acquiring training and licensure in massage therapy from the New Mexico Academy of Massage and Advanced Healing Arts. Additionally, Rebecca holds certifications in Transformational Breathwork, Facial Rejuvenation, Polarity, and Reiki III. She has further expanded her expertise through training and certifications in Emotional Release Acupressure, Tapas Acupressure Technique, Energy Psychotherapy, Emotional Freedom Techniques, a 350-hour Yoga teacher training, and Sound Healing with Tuning Forks.
The intention of all of her treatments is to bring a profound sense of well-being through the ritual of healing touch to help release physical, mental and emotional stress in a safe and healing environment.