Greg Livingston is a doctor. He goes to work in a hospital. He wears a white coat while there. The difference is, he will feel your pulse and look at your tongue before prescribing herbal medicine.
Greg Livingston is from San Francisco. He studied Chinese Medicine in the US and in China, before landing a job as a tcm physician in Shanghai.
This story is too heartwarming not to mention: “Expat TCM docs take your pulse” (I think I have a better title anyway) <http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/?id=419674&type=Feature>
Some significant tidbits with emphasis mine:
…But TCM today has adherents all over the world, and many come to China to study and practice the ancient healing arts.
Some are beginners, with no TCM background, while others have studied TCM in their own countries and seek further training in TCM academies. Some attach themselves as apprentices to TCM masters.
In Shanghai there are around 1,000 overseas students in short-term study and 700 others in long-term study in Shanghai University of TCM. About 100 expats enroll each year.
The city’s three major TCM hospitals – Shuguang, Yueyang and Longhua – each accepts 100-200 oversea interns each year…
I was one! But it was in Nanjing.
One of the successful graduates is Livingston, who has 15 years’ experience in TCM. He earned a master’s degree and then a PhD in TCM from Zhejiang Chinese Medicine University this year. He works as a TCM physician in the internal medicine department of Shanghai East International Medical Center.
Livingston was attracted by TCM’s understanding of human beings and their relationship to the universe.
He graduated from university with a bachelor’s degree in biology in his early 20s. Then he decided to pursue TCM and studied in the United States before coming to China.
Both Western and Chinese medicine are exploring the mysteries of the human body but in completely different ways, says Livingston.
“I like to use the analogy of the body as a forest. Western medicine is down in the forest examining each tree, each leaf and each cell, while Chinese medicine stands up on a mountain nearby, overlooking the whole forest,” he says.
TCM is more interested in the relationship between each part and how they cooperate while Western medicine is more engaged in exploring the micro world and seeing how each cell comprises the world, he says.
Beautiful analogy.
Some people consider TCM unscientific because much of it is impossible to explain through “science,” but Livingston says these skeptics are incorrectly trying to explain TCM through Western medicine rather than broader science.
The fact that qi (life force) and jing luo (qi channel) – the major TCM principles – are invisible leads many people to question or deny the validity of TCM.
Livingston acknowledges that nobody can actually find qi, but he maintains that it does exist – but not in the way most people would think.
“Of course you cannot find it, because qi is not a thing,” says Livingston. “It is just a word to explain certain phenomena, both in the general natural world and in medicine.”
The fact that there is no single word in English to describe these phenomena does not mean that using qi to identify the phenomena is unscientific.
Again, excellent points. I have often told students that the secret to understanding a complex phenomenon is to clarify definitions. If we do not define Qi properly (as very few popular science lecturers do) or correct misconceptions (such as “energy” flowing through channels - it’s Qi and Blood – and we have to define what Blood is in TCM anyway!) then we should not blame people for misunderstanding it and maybe growing to detest not what it is, but what they think it is.
There’s no definite path for qi flow, either, in Livingston’s opinion. Jing luo is just a word to explain very complicated physiological phenomena when stimulation is applied to a certain point on the skin. It may involve the reactions of blood vessels, nerves, immune system and other systems. Though nobody so far can explain how it exactly works, the phenomena exist and do help to treat ailments.
“TCM is a science based on thousands of years of observation of the world and human beings themselves,” says Livingston. And TCM achievements by far predate Western medicine though its practitioners knew nothing about the microscopic and cellular world inside the human body.
Livingston observes: “‘Huangdi Neijing’ (‘Medical Classic of the Yellow Emperor’) says that the food we eat travels through the stomach and reaches the intestines, the ying qi (nutrient qi) is absorbed in the intestines and enters blood vessels to travel together with blood; the blood then travels through the heart and enters the lungs; qing qi (clear qi) is absorbed in the lungs and completes the blood; the blood then enters the heart again and then travels to all the other organs.
“Sound familiar? It is the blood circulation including systemic circulation and pulmonary circulation that everybody knows today, except for the different wording,” says Livingston. Ying qi is actually nutrition while qing qi refers to oxygen.
This description was completed in Chinese around 2,000 years ago, he says, while it was not until 1616 that William Harvey discovered and scientifically proved blood circulation.
Like I said. Definitions. And yes, Chinese culture beats western culture to a scientific discovery yet again. I cringe when I hear that Guttenberg invented printing.
The same article shows the points of view of a south Korean student seeking to integrate east and west:
“Both traditional Korean medicine rooted in TCM and modern Western medicine are widely accepted in my country, yet they are completely separated from each other,” according to Hong.
“A traditional Korean medicine doctor never uses Western methods to diagnose or treat patients, while a Western medicine doctor never applies traditional Korean medicine in any cases, either,” she says.
Witnessing her father’s suffering from chemotherapy for his stomach cancer, Hong decided to search for another way to help people. Without any medical background, she began her TCM study in Shanghai in 1993 as the second group of foreign TCM students in the Shanghai University of TCM.
Here, she found extensive combination of Western and TCM diagnosis and treatments used in modern Chinese medicine.
Both a Western diagnosis and a TCM diagnosis are written on medical cards in TCM hospitals. TCM treatments are widely used to assist in recovering from serious diseases, together with Western medicine.
Hong earned her PhD in 2007 and became a TCM physician of Shanghai Shuguang Hospital affiliated to Shanghai University of TCM after graduation.
Both Western medicine and traditional Chinese medicine have their strengths and shortcomings, according to Hong.
Modern lab tests and X-rays in Western medicine can effectively discover conditions and diseases like inflammation or tumors, but they are less helpful in what TCM calls “sub-healthy” cases.
The traditional diagnostic methods – wang, wen, wen, qie (observation, auscultation (listening)/olfaction, questioning and pulse taking) – are good at identifying chronic ailments and conditions, and even wei bing (likely future diseases/conditions). But they cannot make a definitive diagnose of an organic problem, such as a tumor and organ/blood vessel hardening.
It is also the case with treatments. Western treatments take effects fast but with great side-effects while TCM treatments protects the healthy qi but takes long to expel the pathogenic qi completely.
“You cannot expect to eliminate a tumor by drinking herbal soup,” says Hong, “but surgically removing a tumor from part of an organ and chemotherapy will inevitably damage the immune system and health.”
In such cases, the most widely used method in modern Chinese medicine is to surgically remove a tumor and help patients recover through acupuncture and drinking herbal soup.
“If we can help patients recover sooner while suffering less, I see no reason to oppose the complementary use of Western medicine and TCM,” says Hong.
My take is that Western medicine is like a rapid firing soldier, and Chinese Medicine the guys who maintain order and infrastructure. I like the “sub-healthy” term though. A person may not be sick but may not be functioning properly either.
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