When Cancer Patients Turn to Chinese Medicine Only at the Very End, It Is Already Too Late

Many cancer patients only seek Chinese medicine at the very last moment. In fact, when a cancer patient has truly exhausted all the methods of Western medicine and only then turns to Chinese medicine, Chinese medicine will no longer have a good effect either. Especially those patients whose bodies have been damaged by Western surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, and targeted drugs have, in reality, no remaining value in seeking Chinese medical treatment.

More than 90% of the cancer patients I have contact with belong to those who have already reached a dead end in Western medicine before coming to Chinese medicine. And however skeptical they were of Chinese medicine before, at the final moment they all place great expectations on it.

With a body already stricken to the marrow and unrealistic hopes, when normal eating, drinking, urination, defecation, and sleep have already broken down, still hoping for a cure is very irrational and very unfair to Chinese medicine; the TCM physician who receives them also bears an especially great risk.

In the past I often helped such patients with a sympathetic attitude. But in practice I found that Chinese medicine actually has little value for such patients. So now I directly tell the family to choose to give up, or to seek a more skilled physician elsewhere.

Because if a physician knows the effect will be poor yet still lets the patient spend money on Chinese herbs, leaving the family with neither the person nor their money, that is highly inappropriate and plants the hidden risk of a doctor-patient dispute. A physician must hold a sense of reverence toward doctor-patient disputes in order to avoid encountering them. Usually Chinese people show one attitude when seeking a doctor, and quite another when treatment fails or the patient dies. A person who studies medicine must always remember this.

It is best for the physician to tell the family the truth beforehand and refuse when refusal is appropriate. If the family still truly wants treatment, one may ask them to seek someone more skilled; one should not rashly take the risk of treating, and should be especially careful with families one does not know well. Of course, for patients and families who are familiar, whose expectations are reasonable, and who are only seeking hospice care, one should still not refuse; after all, treating the sick and saving lives and relieving the patient's suffering is a doctor's bounden duty.

For which kinds of cancer patients does Chinese medical treatment make sense, and for which does it not? Or, which patients may seek the help of Chinese medicine, and which should give up seeking it?

By my own experience, regardless of whether cancer is early, middle, or late stage, as long as the patient's normal diet and daily routine can still be basically maintained, seeking Chinese medical treatment is meaningful; and among them, some patients have a hope of being cured. But when advanced or end-stage cancer patients can no longer maintain normal diet and daily routine, and have repeatedly undergone surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, or targeted drugs, developing many side effects, then neither Chinese nor Western medicine has any good way for such patients.

At such a time, the patient and family should accept reality and give up treatment or seek palliative care; that is the most rational choice. Having reached such a point and still expecting the doctor to bring the patient back from the dead, and cursing the doctor's mother when he cannot, is the kind of patient and family every doctor fears.

Many people take it for granted that once they send a patient to a doctor, the doctor ought to be able to solve the patient's problems. This understanding is wrong; medicine is not that almighty. Many problems cannot be solved by doctors; if a doctor can solve the problems of half of those who seek help, that is already remarkable. And sometimes, far from solving the patient's problems, treatment brings unpredictable side effects; medicine inherently carries risk.

Some unscrupulous physicians boast outrageously. For instance, some people talk nonsense about 'those said to be untreatable have merely not found the right technique.' This kind of talk that deifies medicine—whether deifying Chinese medicine, Western medicine, or some new anticancer therapy—is not on the level. These people are either arrogant in the way of the ignorant, or else have ulterior motives and want to cheat people out of money. After all, the money of the dying is the easiest to cheat.

Now Western medicine occupies the mainstream. Because of the limits of their own knowledge and life experience, some Western physicians hold great prejudice against Chinese medicine and readily make extreme remarks forbidding patients and families from seeking its help. This also causes many patients to miss the best time for TCM treatment.

According to the statistics of Guang'anmen Hospital of Chinese Medicine, more than 80% of the cancer patients who visit that hospital are already advanced or end-stage; in fact, most of these patients have little treatment value. As China's most authoritative specialized hospital for treating cancer with Chinese medicine, the patients it admits can only be of this condition, which shows how universal this problem is.

Moreover, judging from the patients and families I meet in practice, most patients who have already reached the final stage, even when seeking Chinese medicine, come with a skeptical attitude; after being prescribed herbs, they go back to seeking Western help, treating Chinese medicine as an optional adjunct. For them, seeing a TCM doctor has only a psychological comfort effect. Behind some of them there are also family members who are strongly anti-Chinese-medicine and self-righteous; if a doctor carelessly receives such a patient, the risk is great.

For this kind of patient, Chinese medicine can of course be of no help. Encountering such patients, I always feel a sense of humiliation.

Another thing is that many patients, during TCM treatment, whether effective or not, easily abandon Chinese medicine and go seeking so-called high-tech help. It is one thing to abandon Chinese medicine when treatment fails, but some patients, whose results on the herbs are clearly very good, still feel that TCM treatment will delay their timing; as treatment proceeds, after seeing some materials or hearing some remark from those around them, they discover a new hope and go to see a Western doctor.

So I personally am now more and more cautious in selecting patients. Most of the patients I have carefully selected have benefited from the help of Chinese medicine.

Although there is little hope of thoroughly eradicating cancer, many cancer patients, under TCM treatment, have obtained a good quality of life and a long survival time; for a TCM physician this is the greatest reward. Having achieved this is enough; why demand that everything one does in a lifetime be perfect?