My Medical Theory ⁽¹⁸⁴⁾

Years ago, an old TCM physician took on apprentices; I went, drawn by his reputation, hoping to become his student and study medicine with him. The first time I met him, he took out a criminal judgment and showed it to me, telling me that…

The late renowned Shanghai physician Qiu Peiran once said that doctor-patient mutual alignment is an important guarantee of therapeutic effect, and he wrote a long article describing it in detail. The Huangdi Neijing (Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon), the classic of TCM, also repeatedly stresses the…

Li Dongyuan, a great physician of China's Jin-Yuan period, took on a disciple named Luo Qianfu. When accepting the disciple, Li asked Luo: "Have you come to learn medicine as a money-making trade, or to learn medicine as a way to transmit the Way?" Luo…

When I was a child, the thing I remember most vividly was my mother often vomiting acid water at our doorstep, in utter misery. Because she was born during the great famine, my mother endured many days of hunger, which led her, before she was…

Nowadays, as I study and practice medicine, patients often joke with me that they would rather meet me as a writer than as a doctor. They are surprised that someone who studied medicine can write so fluently, and some hope I will teach them writing.

Recently, some newly graduated clinical TCM physicians—most just out of TCM universities—have contacted me after reading my articles. Some pour out their hardships, saying they are truly poor, financially strapped, and can barely get by. Others say that in school they never encountered a TCM…

In this life, birth, aging, illness, and death are unavoidable for everyone. Those who go a lifetime without ever being troubled by disease are truly the most enviable people on earth. But such people are extremely few. Since we humans eat the five grains and…

The basic approach of TCM in treating cancer is a comprehensive strategy combining supporting the healthy qi (fuzheng) with eliminating the pathogen (quxie). Ideally, TCM cancer treatment should achieve results that both improve the patient's quality of life and inhibit the tumors and cancer-toxin within…

Communication between doctors and patients and their families is a fundamental aspect of treatment. Good communication not only helps build trust between doctor and patient and promote mutual understanding and sympathy, but is also beneficial to the patient's recovery. At the same time, because oncologists…

Cancer patients need to take medicine over a long period. When undergoing TCM treatment, for some cancer patients who are not in the acute phase, one may consider using herbal paste formula (gaofang) rather than decoction (tangfang) for treatment. For patients who are unwilling to…