Wow, sorry folks. I didn’t consciously stop blogging which tells you that I must be pretty busy. :) This term has been a lot more intense than I expected it to be – mostly because I’m so engaged in everything that I’m learning that I don’t even WANT to do anything but study (aside from stuff with my family). However, I have plenty to share and over the weekend I’m going to be doing my best to write a few articles. I’ll give you a quick preview as well as open up a discussion about different approaches to herbal medicine.
What’s coming up on Deepest Health?
1. Report on the Student Caucus at the AAAOM Conference in Portland. // I’ll just go over what I took away from all the student networking that went on at the conference and my hopes for a stronger, broader professional Chinese medicine community in the United States and beyond.
2. Review of the Acupuncture Desk Reference, a good looking little book put together by David J. Kuoch. // It’s a good attempt at a basic reference book helpful for students and new practitioners. I’ll share what I love and what I think could be improved.
3. Review of the beautiful “Living Meridian” charts available from the folks at The Fifth Element. // I’ll discuss my experiences using the charts in keeping up with my points study and some recommendations for getting the most out of this useful study tool.
4. Review of Blue Poppy Press’ release of a new translation of Yi Lin Gai Cuo, a fascinating work in relatively modern Chinese medicine. // I’ll consider how this book might be useful to students and how it has expanded my understanding of both the history and content of our profession.
5. Discussion about the future of health care in North America and what place I see for Chinese medicine in the overall fabric of medical practice.
6. Many discussions that have come from this term of school including: balancing competing teacher perspectives, the importance of humility in learning and practicing medicine, developing peer relationships in a busy world and comparison of electronic and low-tech methods of study and organization.
I hope you’ll stick around.
A broad question about Chinese herbal medicine practice
I have been learning quite a bit about Chinese formula science these last weeks. This information combined with what I had already integrated through study and watching patients in the clinic has led me to a few conclusions. The first, and most important, is that the “broad spectrum” approach represented by many more contemporary formulas (for instance, RenShen Bai Du San 入參敗毒散 ) is fundamentally bankrupt. It wasn’t until my teacher Arnaud Versluys suggested to us the similarity between the approach of this class of formulas to the use of broad spectrum antibiotics that I really understood how important this principle is for the integrity of our medicine.
Where Zhang Zhong Jing’s formulas were extremely tight in structure, extremely focused and strong in action, “broad spectrum” formulas can hardly be said to have a structure and seem to want to be everything to everybody. They are the John Kerry of the herbal medicine world (sorry John). They seem to characterize a way of looking at medicine that says, “Hey, we don’t REALLY know what’s going on at all, so let’s just cover all of our bases and see what happens.” The fact is that most people do improve, over the short term, with these formulas. Their root pathology, however, may simply sink beneath the surface only to eat away at vital substances and/or resurface at some later time with renewed ferocity. Why not improve our diagnostic skills, improve our understanding of the science behind our medicine and be confident enough in our diagnoses that we can prescribe strong, focused and time-tested formulas?
I don’t know enough to say that all non-Han dynasty formulas are worthless, baseless or are going to harm people in the long run. In fact, I’m sure that’s not the case. But why (and here’s my question to you) not learn very well the principles behind truly Classical formulas, pay careful attention to their clinical effects and proceed in that direction? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
Eric
Tags: Character, formula-science, Acupuncture, formulas, professional-development, Chinese herbs, Blogging, book-review
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Glad to see you back. I have arrived at similar conclusions regarding herbal medicine with a few caveats. Some formulas that I use that fall outside of the classical (read: mostly Han) formulary are the ones that I’ve learned from Dr. Hammer and Dr. Shen. As I’ve said before, and please be advised that this is something I’m working out more precisely, it’s the rigor that counts, and the understanding that matters. So one thing we must all be aware of as we build a unified front in developing a new healthcare system and consciousness, is that there is a multiplicity of successful approaches. Nevertheless, the only consistently successful methods derive from principles and not techniques. So when I say one of my favorite words, rigor, I mean the degree to which we’ve penetrated the depths of our guiding principles and learned to work from their implications and operation. As you’ve said: Pay Attention.
Btw, my 5-year-old son loves an LL Cool J reference.