My Reflections on Learning to Fight Cancer with Traditional Chinese Medicine

Colleagues and patients repeatedly ask me how one should go about learning to fight cancer with traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). I am writing this article to share some of my own reflections. One thing I should state in advance: I am not an authority in this field, nor do I believe any such authority exists. My views are purely my own personal opinions and are bound to have many shortcomings. I set them down only to exchange ideas with everyone; I have no intention of arrogating to myself the role of an authority. I hope readers will not treat this as a serious scholarly article.

In my view, learning to fight cancer is a highly individual matter. Every physician has a distinctive personality, and therefore each of us learns in a way that is equally distinctive, and these traits cannot be shared with others. It is very difficult for us to fully adopt another person's learning insights, and even partial adoption is hard. For what sustains a person's lifelong learning can only be that person's own character and habits of behavior.

For example, a person who loves reading and a person who loves shortcuts simply cannot share the same study habits, and it is hard for the two to learn from or draw on each other's experience. The former may always be diligently exploring new avenues, while the latter fixes his attention on folk remedies and single-drug formulas, hoping for a so-called secret cancer cure or miraculous technique.

A believer in authoritarianism and a skeptic will likewise travel in different directions. The former may treat the classics with reverence, becoming a typical adherent of the "classical formula school," the "contemporary formula school," the "warm disease school," or the "eclectic school," and likes to attach himself to the authorities in these fields, styling himself their heir. The latter, by contrast, keeps trying new things in practice, seeking to open up fresh lines of thought; they are more willing to break through the shackles left by predecessors.

Physicians of different temperaments explore different paths of learning medicine. Which path is better is hard to judge, and I make no such judgment. I believe physicians of different styles each have their own value, and their clinical results may each have their own merits, so that one cannot rank them by personal style alone.

My own MBTI result is INFP-A. The INFP type has two subtypes, INFP-A and INFP-T. The INFP is also called the "Mediator," the "Healer," the "Dreamer," or the "Philosopher." Several important traits of this temperament include being reserved, sensitive, quiet, broad-minded, idealistic, authentic, loyal, steadfast in conviction, and idealistic, with a willingness to dedicate oneself to one's ideals.

INFP types think carefully and rigorously; they enjoy solitude and deep reflection. They are good listeners and can calm the roiling emotions of others. They hold to their own values with an astonishing steadfastness and retain a childlike quality throughout life. INFPs have low desires, are humble and tolerant, and tend to rate themselves clearly below their actual ability; but the INFP-A subtype is relatively more confident, optimistic, and easily contented with life.

INFPs are best suited to work such as writing and psychological counseling; they have a gift for healing the trauma of others. So when I study cancer treatment, I inevitably bring my own personal character to it, and what I pursue is the healing of body and mind together. It is also possible that in future I will obtain qualifications as a psychological counselor or psychiatrist, so as to combine mind-body medicine. This determines that on my road to fighting cancer I too must travel the path of whole-person healing, rather than merely seeking some single method to improve a patient's symptoms.

At the same time, the results of another personality test show that I have schizotypal personality traits. This personality is characterized by being full of fantasies that run counter to convention, and by striving to turn those fantasies into reality. The great scientist Isaac Newton was of this type, and many scientists share such traits; the progress of human science can be described as a continual process of turning fantasy into reality.

I have been deeply influenced by traditional Chinese culture. The spiritual core of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism is not unfamiliar to me; one could even say these spiritual cores have shaped my own character, and they have had an inestimable influence on my study of medicine.

My father was a strict, open-minded, responsible, resilient, and reasonable man; my mother was a gentle, loving, optimistic, and kind woman. A trait my parents shared was that they liked to be good to others. Although I grew up in a family that was not well-off, my parents doted on me. Strict though my father was, he had a very high regard for his children's abilities. He never undervalued us; if others belittled us, my father would defend us.

Moreover, one of my father's maxims was that one must not be stingy when investing in one's children's intelligence. He attached great importance to our education and always found ways to send us to schools with a better academic atmosphere. He also tolerated our buying and reading all kinds of books unrelated to exams, allowed us to develop freely, and never interfered in our studies. His other maxim was: "Becoming a success is your own affair and has nothing to do with me. I am only responsible for providing you with financial support; whether you learn well or badly is entirely up to you. You must be responsible for your own future."

Although supporting three children through school was a heavy burden, my father always told us: "The matter of money has nothing whatsoever to do with you. You need not worry about finances; that is my responsibility as a father." So although my father once physically punished me when I was small, I bear him no grudge at all. For he was truly a responsible father, and, unlike parents who habitually crush their children's self-confidence, my father always affirmed our abilities. But he also often taught us to think things through; his other maxim was, "Use your head before you speak or act." This maxim of my father's made me develop the habit of deep thinking from childhood.

My father was busy earning money to pay for our schooling and never even attended a parent-teacher meeting. The parent-teacher meeting in my junior high was attended on my father's behalf by my fourth uncle. At that meeting the teachers heaped praise on me, and in his excitement my fourth uncle gave me what was then a considerable sum of money as a reward. But my father treasured the honors his children earned; he has carefully preserved my diaries from junior and senior high and the various awards I won throughout my studies, keeping them to this day. In these small details I saw how much he cared.

My father spent his whole life teaching me to respect teachers and value the Way. Each time I returned home he would say, "So-and-so teacher is a fine man; you ought to go and visit him." He was the same with my moral education; even now he often admonishes me that, so long as a patient is friendly, I should sympathize with and help him as much as I can, treat impoverished patients for free, and accumulate virtue and do good.

My older brother influenced me from another direction. My brother was extraordinarily gifted—he was the top scorer on the national college entrance exam and had a photographic memory. Although I have met many intelligent people, few were smarter than my brother. My brother entered his rebellious phase in junior high, and my father sent him to a boarding school about twenty li from home. At that time he hated separation intensely and was deeply distressed, strongly resenting our parents' action.

When I was ten, my brother constantly instilled in me the idea that authority was not to be trusted. My brother and I are deeply attached; we slept in the same bed as children, and even now, at my age, if the wind so much as stirs, my brother still grows anxious. My brother used to say I was spoiled by our parents, but in truth he spoiled me just as much himself. The first money he earned working his way through college he spent on buying clothes for me, who was then in high school. I was ragged then; he worried that, being so poor at school, I would be looked down on and develop an inferiority complex.

Moreover, as a child I greatly admired my brother—his grades were excellent; from the time he entered school he was almost always first, and on the rare occasion he came in second he actually cried and refused to go up to the stage to receive the award. It was not until fourth grade of primary school that I suddenly burst onto the scene like a dark horse, and from then on I was unstoppable, even showing signs of surpassing my brother. So as a child I was like my brother's little shadow; the books he bought I read along with him, and the things he told me always struck me as quite reasonable.

As a youngster he deeply detested authoritarianism and often clashed with our parents. At their wits' end, my parents always asked me to act as a mediator between my brother and themselves, urging him not to be so rebellious, because in our family my brother would seemingly accept only my opinion. As a mediator I always tried not to criticize either side, but instead to locate where each was hurting and help them understand one another. This family environment naturally equipped me with the traits of the INFP mediator personality.

Because of my brother, I chose the science track in high school, and the university major to which I was admitted was engineering. But during my middle-school years I received a very well-rounded education in both the arts and sciences. I did very well in math, physics, and chemistry, almost always coming in first. In middle school I had perfectionist tendencies and was still not satisfied with first place; I always strove for full marks in these purely scientific subjects.

The teachers in my whole grade paid special attention to me; they always liked to test and challenge me with the hardest problems. My chemistry teacher even once let me take over the class. This put me under great pressure myself; now that I no longer pursue perfectionism so hard, I feel much more at ease. But every now and then this complex still torments me a little.

In high school I met the most important mentor of my life. He taught Chinese literature, and I was utterly awed by his erudition and depth; I voluntarily transferred to his class to study under him. He also took exceptional pains to cultivate me and, often at my request, would talk with me in the corridor outside the classroom. Each week he would select a batch of classics in literature, history, and philosophy from his own library and place them on my desk for me to read at random, broadening my horizons while breaking down my sectarian prejudices.

He laid a deep humanities foundation for this science-and-engineering student, making me a broad-minded and impartial person. My logical thinking is well developed, and, thanks to my mentor's cultivation, I also possess divergent and associative thinking, combining both rational and affective modes of thought. This gives me greater creativity; such a life experience can only be described as rare good fortune.

Moreover, he gave me a great deal of care and affection in daily life. I was in poor health and my family's finances were strained; it was he who covered my medical expenses. He nourished my spirit with love while cultivating my soul with his farsighted wisdom. But he was unlike others; he was extremely cautious in his evaluation of me and would never readily give me praise to my face. He worried I would become overly conceited—I only learned after graduation how highly he spoke of me to other teachers; he regarded me as the most prized student of his life. He always cared for my growth in a silent, imperceptible way—and still does; whenever I am at risk, he always steps forward to pull me out.

The bond between teacher and student has lasted until now and grown ever closer; we have become among the most important people in each other's lives. He taught me to treat people sincerely; he gave himself to his students unconditionally and expected nothing in return. However much he appreciated me, he never overpraised me to my face, but instead continually exhorted me to conceal my light and build up a deep foundation, to integrate Chinese and Western learning and bring it to comprehensive achievement.

He also taught me the boundaries that should exist between people. Whenever I tried to express boundless gratitude to him, he always responded with courtesy and generous reciprocity, not allowing things between us to lose their boundaries and balance.

I used to refuse to accept this, thinking he was keeping his distance from me. But my mentor told me that on such matters I should trust my teacher; he said this was the foundation of maintaining a lasting bond between us. If there are no boundaries between people and balance is not maintained, it is easy to hurt one another rather than appreciate one another. Now that I am forty-four, I deeply admire the way my mentor taught me how to conduct myself by his own example. When I maintain my relationships with others, including my relationships with patients, I am carrying on his style.

So my character and my personal experience determine that throughout my life I will keep exploring in depth every aspect related to cancer, eventually forming a highly integrated approach to fighting cancer. Moreover, my philosophy of treating cancer is bound to be suffused with a spirit of humanistic care.

This is a vast undertaking that can only be realized through the accumulation of days and months. I plan to publish a monograph; it will cover every aspect of recovery for cancer patients and will innovate on the basis of predecessors. For a person of my temperament, to have no creative achievement in a lifetime and to stop at echoing what others say would be a great regret. If in my lifetime I cannot produce work that surpasses my predecessors, I may feel I have wasted this life and be unable to rest in peace. As for fame and gain, they are things that may be taken or left.

I plan to spend another ten years or so accumulating my knowledge and clinical experience, broadening my horizons, and comprehensively studying cancer biology, modern oncology, traditional Chinese medicine, and the psychological treatment of cancer patients. I intend, after the age of fifty-five, to begin systematically organizing my cancer-fighting experience, writing an innovative work that integrates all kinds of knowledge related to cancer, and striving to make some breakthrough in cancer treatment so as to raise the success rate. My current success rate in treating cancer is already four to five times what it was ten years ago, and I believe in another ten years it will be even higher.

I do all this because of an obsession I cannot set aside. My mother died of cancer in 2012. During her lifetime I exhausted every means to relieve her suffering, but in the end many regrets remained. I hope that in my lifetime I can make a breakthrough in medicine, creating new approaches that are more effective and more humane than current oncology for relieving patients' pain, prolonging their lives, and even curing them—thereby repaying my loving mother.

Whenever I think of her, I feel a strong sense of mission, a mission that has doomed me to devote my life to cancer patients. Compared with this mission, all the vexations of worldly life truly are not worth mentioning.

That I have now chosen TCM cancer treatment as my life's ideal was purely an accident—such is human fate, in which many chance factors push us onto a road we never expected. At the outset I had hoped my mother would receive integrated Chinese-Western treatment, but later, in the process of seeking doctors, I met repeated setbacks. Under the double blow of a cerebral hemorrhage and gastric cancer, my mother's body and mind were both tormented. I kept her by my side to care for her and accompany her through the rest of her illness; I not only studied various medical skills to relieve her physical pain but also did everything possible to soothe her mind and lessen her spiritual suffering.

In August 2012, about three months after my mother's death, I made the decision to abandon business and take up medicine. At that time I set myself a vow in my heart: "In treating any patient, treat him as my own mother." Eleven years later, this vow still influences me. But I also know this wish is too idealistic, because not everyone can trust me and love me selflessly the way my mother did. Many patients and their families, even on first contact, have spoken to me gratuitously with malice; so such a wish can only be a fantasy. I can only revise it to: do my utmost to help those patients who truly trust me.

If you too are the child of a cancer patient, if you too have sincere and deep love for your own kin and cared for them devotedly during their lifetime, you will surely understand the path my heart has traveled. Mencius said: "Treat the aged of your own family as the aged should be treated, and extend this to the aged of other families; treat the young of your own family as the young should be treated, and extend this to the young of other families." A person's sense of compassion first arises toward his own beloved kin, then extends to others, and eventually this compassion develops into a spirit of universal love. A person who has been nurtured to adulthood by the selfless love of many, when the arrangements of fate lead him onto the path of universal love, will very naturally be called by a sense of mission to walk an idealistic road.

I often advise young people who consult me about how to study TCM to choose a specific direction and serve a specific patient population. Perceive the suffering they endure, and learn all the biology, Chinese medicine, Western medicine, and even psychology and psychiatry related to that disease. Dig deeply in that specific field; do not cling to sectarian prejudices, and do not go looking for so-called folk remedies or secret formulas.

What we want to help is the patient, and the patient's life always comes first. During the patient's lifetime, we should as far as possible improve his quality of life and lessen his physical and mental suffering. To this end we must have a spirit of focus; ranging over too many diseases will only ensure that we go deep in no field. Only by digging deeply and specializing in one particular field can we bring the greatest benefit to the people in that field. This can also fulfill our own lifelong career, help us realize ourselves, and make our lives as valuable as possible; the relationship between us and those we serve is one of mutual achievement.

Many people say that one good TCM physician is worth a whole general hospital and can solve all kinds of patients' problems. I make no comment on this view. TCM is indeed a holistic medicine and can solve many problems. But in an age of increasingly advanced medicine, what we no longer need is that kind of broad, sweeping medicine whose efficacy is not sufficiently clear; what we need is more specialized and deeper medical care.

Moreover, with the development of evidence-based medicine, when we treat disease with TCM we inevitably must also take the road of evidence-based medicine. This is a way of being responsible to patients and responsible to history. The progress of human science is a process in which latecomers stand on the shoulders of predecessors and continually advance scholarship. If we go in the opposite direction, medicine will have no possibility of progress.

To learn TCM cancer treatment, one must read the introductory classics such as the Huangdi Neijing (Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon), the Shanghan Lun (Treatise on Cold Damage), the Jinkui Yaolue (Essential Prescriptions from the Golden Cabinet), and the Wenbing Tiaobian (Systematic Identification of Warm Diseases). One must also learn formula studies and Chinese materia medica thoroughly and solidly, and must fully master modern oncology, cancer biology, and the cancer-related knowledge within traditional Chinese medicine—chiefly the pathology of related disorders such as abdominal masses (jiju), dysphagia (yege), regurgitation (fanwei), scrofula (luoli), goiter and tumors (yingliu), breast rock (ruyan), cervical malignancy (shirong), lip fungus (chujian), and abdominal concretions and gatherings (zhengjia) and related conditions. One should also carefully study the classics on deficiency-consumption disorders in TCM (such as the Neiwaishang Bianhuo Lun and the Lixu Yuanjian) as well as the classics on TCM external medicine (such as the Waike Zhengzong, the Waike Zhengzhi Quansheng Ji, and the Yangyi Xinde Ji). One must also broadly study psychology, psychiatry, religion, and related fields.

The ancients said: "Though you read Wang Shuhe through and through, it is not as good as having seen many patients." Good doctors grow up in clinical practice. Only by going deeply among cancer patients, feeling their joys and sorrows and understanding their needs, can we know the direction of our own study. The knowledge we acquire can only be verified as right or wrong in the course of concrete application. In practice we always encounter all kinds of thorny problems, and these very problems are opportunities for us to improve ourselves. Only by not shirking these problems, by continually filling the gaps in our own knowledge structure, and by striving to solve them, can we grow into an experienced oncologist.

Some people who want to learn TCM cancer treatment ask me for a reading list. I am ashamed to say I cannot produce such a list. First, I believe which kind of books suit a given person is determined by that person's character and has strongly individual features; others cannot give advice that fully fits. Second, from my own clinical experience, the most effective way to read is to meet a problem and, in order to solve it, go to the books and look things up by pointing at the map.

For example, when we meet the question of whether or not to use toxic drugs and how to use them, we can search the literature on this subject using relevant keywords and learn about the anticancer effects of the toxic Chinese medicinal materials and the ways to use them safely. Generally speaking, so long as we understand the toxicology of these poisons and look up their LD50 (median lethal dose), use them cautiously in the clinic, do not readily exceed one-tenth of the median lethal dose, and closely watch the patient's reactions after taking the medicine, we will be very safe in the course of treatment.

This kind of learning ability cannot be taught by others; each person must feel his or her own way. To be factual, doctors differ from one another enormously. Every physician's personal style in clinical practice is utterly different, and what kind of doctor a patient ultimately chooses also depends on the patient's own knowledge structure and life experience. What our ancients called the "medical affinity" (yi yuan), put plainly, is simply that the doctor and patient happen to match in their outlook on life and the world, so that the patient trusts the doctor, and the doctor's professional ability happens to be just sufficient to solve the patient's problem. Is there anything more to it than that?

When one studies medicine there is no need to force oneself to imitate another doctor. Human personality is deeply rooted and cannot be copied. A physician must raise his overall quality and accumulate rich professional knowledge in order to serve patients better and more safely, and to deepen his own work in medicine over the long run. People grow throughout their lives; on this point physicians have a deeper appreciation than anyone. What we need is a spirit of lifelong learning and constant reflection, together with a life vision that fits ourselves—not a simple reading list.

Not only would some aspiring medical students like me to prescribe a reading list; other readers ask the same. I feel deeply overwhelmed, and I also understand that even if another person followed my reading path exactly and read every book I have read, he could not grow into the same person I am. Because different people gain very different things from reading the same book. Some books I find fascinating put others to sleep. A book is only most suitable when it suits oneself in the present moment. I have always believed that adult learning should be based on solving the problems of the present; with this as the foundation, one is bound to grow at the fastest possible pace. Reading with a problem in hand yields the greatest harvest.

Let me bring this article to a close. Only by examining our own hearts, knowing ourselves, and acting according to our own characteristics rather than copying others' homework, can we realize our own life vision and grow into the person we hope to be. Perhaps there is a "superego" in everyone's heart, and a certain distance always exists between our "id" and our "superego." But the superego is always guiding us forward; it is under this guidance that we continually grow and walk the road of our lives. If this were not so, would not life be dreadfully boring?