Neither Chinese nor Western Medicine Is Perfect: Study and Practice Medicine with Caution

The rivalry between Chinese and Western medicine has always existed, and it runs fierce—so fierce that on many online platforms the two sides are irreconcilable. For years I have deliberately stayed out of any such fray, because my experience tells me that joining either side only deepens one’s own fixation: you cannot persuade the other, will not listen with an open mind, and both sides end up entrenched.

Now, for me, Chinese and Western medicine are like my left and right hands; I cannot favor one over the other. I have studied Chinese medicine, and now a semester of Western medicine, and I will soon complete the full foundational Western curriculum.

When, in the laboratory, I personally run coagulation tests and use controlled experiments to verify each clotting factor’s role; when I see, through the microscope, human neurons interwoven like a network and like a starry sky; when I test my own blood type with antibodies—I am deeply impressed by the rigor of modern medicine.

Yet I do not therefore dismiss traditional medicine. I have treated intractable, even terminal, conditions with traditional techniques, and I know firsthand that although traditional theory is not as rigorous as modern medicine, its therapeutic effects are real. It is only that some traditional practitioners do exaggerate, puffing Chinese medicine to an off-putting degree—but they do not represent all of Chinese medicine.

I once advised a student who has studied Chinese medicine with me since childhood—now in a combined bachelor’s–master’s program at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine—to study clinical medicine too, if she gets the chance, even if only at the junior-college level. I hope she will have a broader medical vision, receiving both Chinese and Western training. In Chinese medicine she first had apprenticeship education and now has university training; if she later studies Western medicine as well, her foundation will be exceptionally solid, she will stand on a high starting point, and she may well accomplish great things in medicine.

But that is genuinely hard to achieve; practical concerns of livelihood may make it difficult for her to finish Chinese medicine and then study Western. Honestly, this is a hardship not everyone can bear; perhaps only when she reaches my age will she have studied both systems through.

Looking back on my life, I can honestly say that since age 18 I have hardly wasted a day. I have rarely met anyone as hardworking as I am; everyone who has worked or studied alongside me remembers my diligence, and my learning ability is at least above average. Medicine is so vast that, diligent as I am, I have so far learned only a little surface, and cannot yet claim to have penetrated the depths of either system. Even devoting my whole life, I may never reach the ideal of perfection—indeed, medicine as a whole may never reach it; it seems we will always have many diseases we cannot solve.

In my view, both Chinese and Western medicine should be more humble. One thing we must admit: the diseases we can actually treat are only a small fraction of all human disease. Many conditions cannot be solved by either system alone, nor even by perfect, close cooperation between them. As the old saying goes, the longer a doctor practices, the more timid and cautious he becomes—and I now feel this deeply. Medicine’s power is so limited that we can rarely meet the expectations of patients and their families; being blamed at every turn seems the inescapable fate of this profession.

Some doctors therefore complain that patients and families are irrational and demand too much. I cannot fully agree. Even ants cling to life; when ill, suffering torment and fearing death are only human. High expectations are inevitable human nature, and a doctor must recognize this reality. The clearer we are about it, the more it helps us stay sober and restrained in our careers and reduce risk.

Medicine has been a high-risk profession since ancient times, not just today. Hua Tuo, hailed as a divine physician, nevertheless met a violent end through his practice. There is an idiom, “Tiying saves her father,” about the Han physician Chunyu Yi—the world’s first doctor to write medical records (zhenji)—who offended a high-ranking patient and was nearly put to death, while his daughter Tiying offered to die in his place. In the writings of many famous ancient physicians, I have read their accounts of being misunderstood by patients and families; over my own years I too have had painful experiences from contact with patients.

These remind us: in studying and practicing medicine, we must be cautious in word and deed, and avoid creating any misunderstanding or unrealistic expectations in patients and families. A doctor must have a deep grasp of medicine’s limitations; before seeing a patient, communication must be honest and thorough, wording precise, with no vague phrases—or sooner or later one will stumble in one’s medical career.