Just before leaving China

This is more of a personal entry. It is not a secret that I will be leaving China in a couple of days, after having spent 17 years in Beijing and Guangzhou. I leave my job at the Sports Trauma Hospital with feelings of great accomplishment and satisfaction after putting together a fully functional spinal deformities correction department.

However, since February there has been a hostile overtake of the hospital administration, and a split between the Niu Family. As a result, I decided not to follow either of the brothers, and opted to pursue an academic and clinical position in Phoenix, AZ.

Before leaving though, I had the chance to meet with my PhD supervisor, Prof. Chen Li-guo who’s retiring soon. Prof. Chen was the person who single handedly took the TCM Department at the Jinan University in 2000, kickstarted its Medical Degree, then a few years later established its Medical Master’s and more recently the PhD program.

Chen had an amazing journey in medicine, starting out as a barefoot doctor in 1976, before enrolling at the Shandong TCM University in 1977, and obtaining his PhD in 1990, at a time when Research Degrees were still rare in China.

Prof. Chen brought a bottle of Wu Liang Ye baijiu (and gifted me 3 more), because -from previous feasts- he knows that the acidity of the Mao Tai hurts my stomach. We ate, we drunk (the entire bottle), and we discussed Ye Tian-shi’s case studies, ancient philosophy, traditional medicine, and anecdotes about Chen Keji and Deng Tie-tao.

In Beijing, I also met with my good friends and colleagues, Doctors Thomas Avery Garran and Shelley Ochs for a cup of coffee at the mall next to the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences. Both of them are amazing scholars and hold PhD’s from that Institution, which is one of the top places to learn Chinese medicine on the planet.

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Historical traumatology and making wooden splints at the hospital

I t was back in 2018, and I was still working at the Sports Trauma Hospital in Guangzhou, China. That day, a young gentleman comes to the clinic with a martial arts injury. Physical examination/palpation of the limb and also an x-ray revealed a fractured ulna. Typically, in these types of situations, the standard of care at the hospital, required that the patient moves to the inpatient department for further evaluation, processing and to await surgery. During the surgery, the specialist would open a small incision, realign the bone and then secure it in place with pins or metal implants. However, this approach is not always necessary. In the not-so-distant past, for a simple fracture of the ulna with less than 50% displacement and less than 10% angulation, a simple cast and plenty of rest would be sufficient. In any case, the patient outright refused surgery and casting. He simply asked that we use traditional bone-setting to realign the bone, and then secure it in place with wooden s

Historical photos from the Annual Conferences of the Translation Specialty Committee of the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies

I just received the news that this year, the annual WFCMS Conference for the Translation Specialty Committee will be held in person, after 4 years of hybrid meetings. Today, I am looking back at some photos from previous - in person - meetings, from times when I delivered key note speeches. Wuhan meeting in 2014: Nanchang Meeting in 2015: Guangzhou meeting in 2017: Shanghai meeting in 2018: Shanghai 2018, with Prof. Nigel Wiseman Guangzhou 2017, with Dr. Shan Bao-zhi, the current President of the Committee, and two of my former classmates: Changsha 2016: Shanghai 2018 with Professor Fang Ting-yu and Prof. Wang Kui Shanghai 2018 with Prof. Nigel Wiseman, Prof. Zhu Jian-ping, Dr. Shan Bao-zhi and Prof. Wang Kui: With Prof. Nigel Wiseman and my old classmate from BUCM, Dr. Rao Hong-mei: With Prof. Wang Kui, Prof. Nigel Wiseman, Prof. Zhu Jian-ping and Prof.Hong Mei: With Prof. Nigel Wiseman and Prof. Li Xiao-li: Changsha 2016 with Prof. Ma Boying: Changsha 2016 with Prof. Greta Yang

The new "Zhongxing Sports Trauma Hospital" Poster

Last Friday, I discovered that my old job in China, the “Zhongxing Sport Trauma Hospital” in Guangzhou, created a new poster for the Hospital Introduction, which features one of my photos. I was very surprised, because it has been more than 4 years since I left. Over the weekend, they reached out to request for my face to be used as part of their history and professional identity. To that, I kindly agreed. (Side note: The photo with the skeleton was also taken by me, in late 2017)

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