A new (awesome) online community for Chinese medicine students and practitioners
Hey everyone. As you may know, I’m a huge proponent of the expansion of use of Internet tools by Chinese medicine practitioners and students. I feel that the potential to exchange information, build relationships and organize political and social action is simply too great to ignore. Add this to the fact that much of the information you can find on the Internet is anything but - to use Abdallah’s term in a comment on a recent blog post about the integration of Western medicine and ancient Chinese medicine - rigorous. In fact, most of it is intended to steer clients towards over-the-counter products that may or may not be right for their condition. Much of the rest is repetitive and pedantic.
My most earnest desire is to see thriving communities mediated by the Internet, involving people with diverse approaches and experiences from all over the world talking about the theory, practice and social/political development of this medicine. I don’t think this can be a substitute for “real life” relationship building, learning in a classroom environment (or, preferably, within a Master-Student relationship) or careful clinical practice. I simply see it as one more immensely powerful tool in our effort to understand nature, the human body and ancient Chinese medicine.
This site is my small effort to contribute to that and every day I learn a little more about how to make my dream become reality. Imagine my happy surprise, then, when I found another site already well developed that operates in the same spirit and adds many features that my small site cannot hope to offer at this time. Enter rootdown.us - an incredible new online community for Chinese medicine. When you visit the site, be sure to sign up for an account and add some personal information as well as a photo. I feel this helps to increase the “community” feel of the site. You can also build networks of friends as you can do at various social media sites. Only this time, the social connections are relevant to our passion - Chinese medicine.
Some of my favorite features of the site? Aside from the awesomeness of the individuals behind it? It’s community aspect is definitely part. The theoretical and clinical information database is built by the community. For instance, you can add indications and clinical applications to particular herbs, points or formulas. People can then comment on your addition. You can vote herbs and points “up” and “down” depending on their clinical effectiveness. There are forums that are growing in complexity and popularity. These features and more help to create a feeling of a real community with a powerful function of increasing the understanding of Chinese medicine for all.
The database is another incredible feature. You will find detailed descriptions and explanations for nearly every formula, herb and point available. Chinese, pinyin and English are all included - which I love. The information is also interconnected - if you head over to a formula, say Gui Zhi Tang , you can click on an individual herb to be taken to its page. The amount of information available is just going to grow as the community does - go and add some information today! I have been informed that soon each herb will come with pictures of the growing herb and the dried version - an invaluable resource as I think most of you will recognize immediately.
This site is a great resource for both students and practitioners. Students can quickly look up a formula and investigate its properties and individual herbs. They can participate in forum discussions and network with professionals and fellow students all over. Practitioners can see how others are using formulas, add their voices to the various discussions and network with people they might not have otherwise met.
The site is expanding at a healthy clip - there are a number of new features coming. There is also a form on every page on the site allowing you to send feedback, and the developers are very responsive. I am so excited about this site that I’ve asked to be involved in any way I can. I’m hoping in particular to increase the amount of information available from Classical sources, perhaps even Classical text translations? I’ve started by adding information to the herbal database and I’m looking forward to participating in many forum conversations. I hope I’ll see you there - be sure to add me as a buddy. :)
Eric
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Tags: chinese-medicine, professional-development, Technology
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[...] October 19, 2007 at 1:54 am · Filed under Chinese Medicine Adding my support for Rootdown.us but letting Eric at Deepest Health tell you about it. [...]
Hey Eric,
Thanks for the link, and for taking the time to write your review and thoughts about the site.
The website’s a bit slow, I have difficulty uploading it, and therefore I have difficulty in sending this msg to the right people…. any thoughts about that point?
How’s school treating you?
The internet is a powerful tool which many in western medicine use to exchange ideas about medicine and some use to provide medical advice to those who may not otherwise be able to receive it.
I agree - its way overdue in Chinese medicine. I look forward to checking out rootdown!