Navigating through the sea of medicine

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