TCM Chat ⁽⁹⁶⁾

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.

I People keep asking me to put together a reading list and explain how to begin learning traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). I am only a half-baked practitioner myself, so I dare not take on such a task, fearing that I might mislead others. I have…

People often ask me to talk about how to study TCM.

The *Huangdi Neijing* (Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon) is a foundational text of TCM. In China, virtually every TCM student is required to read it, and many TCM enthusiasts are told they must study it carefully. Given the Chinese tradition of venerating antiquity, few dare challenge…

To assert something as certain without examination is folly. To rely on what cannot be made certain is fraud. Therefore those who expressly rely on the former kings and declare Yao and Shun certain are either fools or frauds. — Han Feizi, "Xianxue" (Having Schools)…

A male colleague of my wife's is obsessed with TCM health-preserving TV shows. Like many Beijing locals, after watching a program he likes to go to the pharmacy and buy some of the medicines the “experts” recommend for health preservation. He kept this habit for…

An oncologist faces families under extreme tension. The patient's life hangs by a thread; overanxious family members have long since been pulled off their normal life track, and the oncologist is their last hope of salvation. If the physician can bring them hope of being…

Traditional Chinese medicine faces enormous questioning and debate in the present era. Everyone who cultivates the field of TCM encounters all kinds of doubt, censure, and controversy. If one visits forums such as Tianya or Mop, countless people can be found who wish to see…

The original article was written in August 2012. Yesterday I went again to the home of Dr. Li, a former Western-medicine specialist at Chaoyang Hospital and a lymphoma patient who has been fighting cancer for seven years, to visit her and learn Western medicine from…

Chinese medicine was invented by China's ancestors and has the broadest influence within China itself, yet China's share of the global TCM export market is only in the single digits. Japan, South Korea, and India all hold a larger share of the TCM export market…