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.

Comments

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 wood...

How to explain Chinese medicine to your patients

Most new patients at the hospital, regularly ask for an explanation of Chinese medicine , so that they understand how the treatment works. In the United States, the religious, or those with a background in science are often very suspicious of a system that is being frequently advertised as the product of vague eastern practices , or is surrounded by mystery and/or encompassing near occult methods. Many of my acupuncture students, sometimes also find it difficult to come up with a clear definition that doesn’t include the keywords: qi, energies, yin and yang, five elements , and 5000 years of TCM history . An attempt to explain it as a method of using needles to stimulate “channels and meridians” , or using herbs to access the internal organs according to ancient experiences of the Chinese people, again doesn’t sound scientifically convincing. From my experiences in a hospital setting, when the religious or t...

Fearing Integrative Medicine? -Why? It might just save your tradition!

Chinese Medicine is a medical system that prides 15 centuries of continuous development. And it has not only managed to remain relevant and current, but has also successfully acculturated itself in the mainstream healthcare, becoming a global phenomenon. Yet, there is a misconception among some acupuncturists, that other modalities are now aggressively appropriating parts of their practices (i.e., "scope creep"). I think that this viewpoint, although sometimes valid, should become an opportunity for reflecting back on the reasons why this is happening. But let’s start with a true story: In 2017, an amateur MMA fighter in China, knocked out a famous Taiji master in 30 secs. All sentiments aside, in recent decades Taiji stopped being a martial art (for the most part), and has reached a point where it is now taught as a dance routine with health benefits. As such it has lost its original scope, purpose and application. Chinese medicine in recent years ...

Navigating through the sea of medicine

Search This Blog