The flood of summer blessings

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Hey everyone,

I am basking in the resplendent blessings of the summer season. My thesis is completed, defended and turned in. 95% of my work is done for graduation (paperwork and the like). I passed all three of my board exams for licensure (yay!) My family is coming into town on Friday! I’m currently neck deep in a beautiful business course with Mark at the Heart of Business about money and one’s relationship to it. I’m positively exploding with ideas, inspiration and energy – so excited to move into this next phase.

I expect that several things will happen over the coming months concerning the blog. I thought I would provide some forewarning. Also : if anyone notices anything strange with the blog today, tomorrow or the next day – please email me (click on “About Eric Grey” along the top of the page, you will find my contact information there). I actually just accidentally deleted part of my database and the whole blog disappeared! I think I restored everything correctly, but there may be weirdnesses going on. Let me know.

So – the times they are a’changing

New theme and general design of the site
Integration of bits and pieces relating to social media, favorite websites, new writers and more
New content schedule and regularly updated content
Increased integration of audio, video and images
Offering of free resources for students and new practitioners
The integration of a Deepest Health forum
Possible changes in advertising viewable on the site
Increased opportunities for interaction

It’s going to take me some time to recover from these last grueling weeks, and I am taking the second week of July off to wander on the beach with my family and attend the Oregon Country Fair… but, I’m going to start working hard and getting back to one of my favorite things – interacting with people who are passionate about Chinese medicine from all over the planet (that’s you all!)

Thanks for your ongoing support and patience, everybody!

Eric

June 23, 2009 · Filed Under Blogging, Learning

1 Comment

The Lingshu and becoming a superior Chinese medicine practitioner

There is a very interesting discussion going on over at Richard Goodman’s blog – He explains…

“…Ling Shu Chapter 55

The superior physician treats that which is not yet ill. The inferior physician treats that which is already ill.

This is a fairly famous statement, which is often interpreted to be a call to preventative medicine. Modern physicians often complain that patients come in with specific complaints and it is impossible to treat what is not yet ill. I find this stance strange, as if we are to believe if someone has a disease which has already become manifest, the practitioner is prevented from treating what is not yet ill.

At any rate, the following quote from Nanjing has a completely different interpretation of the above passage:

Treating what is not yet ill means that when one sees illness in the liver (for example), this (can be) transmitted to the spleen. First fill (shi2) the spleen qi so that there is no way for it to accept the liver’s evil qi. This is what is called treating what is not yet ill.

As you can read, the writer of the Nan Jing felt that the meaning of treating what was not yet ill did not mean some psychic rendering of signs and symptoms, but a way of treating a person who comes with a specific complaint. “

Talking with my friend and colleague Michael Givens, he stated his conviction that this Classical passage tells us succinctly how we must proceed as Classically trained physicians. I agree! When a patient comes in to see us, we must be doing a number of things simultaneously. We must see the present complaint as it is an express of physiology gone awry, and we must situate that within a matrix of time and space that helps us understand the root of the disease as well as its potential for adverse development. While your chronic cough may be easy to ignore and seemingly innocuous, not to mention related only to the “Lung,” as Classically minded practitioners, we need to see under, around, beyond and between that.

This asks a lot of practitioners. We need to understand physiology in all of its manifestations, with all of the conceptual systems we have to understand them. This is particularly true of the six conformations, as they are the broadest, most comprehensive, and least misleading structures we have available. But, we must also know the five element model (and all of the interrelationships therein), the complexity of the channel system (from minute luo to cutaneous regions), and yes, we can also take into account the Zangfu information (particularly as contained in the Neijing and other Classical texts) and everything else we have learned. It is my preference to stick with the six conformations and five elements, and others may have other preferences.

We need to understand the manifold ways that physiology can be disturbed, and understand the diverse ways this can express in patients. We must understand how disease progresses through time, and what factors might upset the “normal” progression.

This is to say nothing of all we must know for treatment. This is to say nothing of the intense rectification of the self that must take place in order for our true healing power to come forth. It is to say nothing of a lot of things, but a lot about a little. And that little is critically important, so important that it was enshrined in the foundational texts of our medicine.

I don’t know if I will ever “be” a superior physician – it seems to me the kind of thing that one continually strives for, a moving target that helps to keep the thirst for excellence alive. But, I do know that the rest of my life will be devoted to attempting to understand the above, and attempting to let that understanding flow into my treatment, and to let my treatment be of service to my patients.

What about you? How do you understand the above line? Do you feel prepared to strive for the “rank” of superior physician? Discuss here in the comments or on Richard’s fine site.

Eric

June 16, 2009 · Filed Under Classical Texts (general), Learning, The profession

7 Comments

Argument for a medical multiverse : Acknowledgements

When you write acknowledgements for a thesis at a small college in Portland, you can be reasonably assured that almost nobody will read them. This is a shame, for they are meant to be read – meant to shout your love, respect and admiration from the rooftops! So, I hope you will indulge me and read the below and give a silent round of applause to the people that made my thesis, indeed my entire success at school and on this blog and in my life in general, possible. I couldn’t possibly mention everyone who was a part of it – so if you’re not mentioned below and should be – know that my love goes to you as well.

In the coming weeks, I’ll release more of my thesis, though the very thought terrifies me. Anyone who’s written a thesis, dissertation or book will know what I mean.

———

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To Amanda, the love of my life, without you life is bereft of meaning. I thank your for your persistence, your strength, your uncommon beauty and your belief that I’m not as crazy as I seem.

To Eden, without whom I would have had no reason to go to school at all, my debt to you can never be repaid. I love you, I love you, I love you.

To Sarah and Christopher, my dear friends, thank you for your patience with my idiosyncrasies. I cannot promise they will diminish with the final draft of this thesis. But, I can promise more beach trips.

To Heiner, my heartfelt thanks for guidance, for inspiration and for constant reminders of the power of this medicine. I will always be your student, if you’ll have me.

To Arnaud, my utmost gratitude – I hope one day I can be worthy of what you teach. Slowly – I’m starting to get it.

To Michael, remember: scrofula! I can only hope that our study together will continue until the end of our days.

To David Berkshire, thank you for giving me the space to learn from your teacher – nature.

To Brandt, to Abdallah, this end is a beginning. For us, for Watershed and of course – for our journey to God.

To all of my other teachers, too numerous to list individually, you have bestowed me with faith – in medicine, in myself and in a brighter future for humanity.

Love to my grandfather, who taught me the value of unimpeachable argument. Hopefully, one day, I will fully integrate the lesson.

To Kellen, thank you for your sincerity and unconditional love – you always have a home with me.

Finally, to my mother and father – Holly and Steve – what can I say? To you, I owe my life, my fortitude and the most important lesson I’ve learned: in the end, love conquers all.

June 14, 2009 · Filed Under Learning, Our Story, Student Life

1 Comment

Writing and the formation of a vigorous Chinese medicine profession

So, I passed my thesis defense! I have a few revisions to make – when I’m done with those and have final approval I will (a) breathe a big sigh of relief, (b) begin posting portions of my thesis for discussion on the blog. As I see the topic, particularly of the last half of the document, being the ground for the next decade or two of my intellectual work – it seems prudent to discuss it with as many people as possible. How else am I going to get good ideas? ;)

The thesis process was a good one, overall. I know that most Chinese medicine students don’t have to produce something like a thesis – opting instead to do a final project or something of that nature. If you would have asked me six months ago what I thought about our writing a thesis, I would have given you a pretty negative answer. At that point, I was still pretty freaked out by the clinical aspect of things and I really felt like we should be focusing entirely on the clinic during our final year. I can still see the benefit and wisdom of that idea, but I think I’ve developed a different stance over the last months.

Our program at NCNM is a little different than most in that it expressly intends to develop people who are or can be scholars in the field as well as practitioners. While many great scholars come from programs all over the world, NCNM is the only one that I checked out that actively attempts to develop the scholarly spirit in its students. Now, of course this is not always successful. People come to the program for different reasons, only one of which is to develop that scholarly acumen. It was (and is) definitely a priority for me. Why?

I continue to feel that this is a critical time in the development of natural medicine, including Chinese medicine. Great practitioners are needed. I truly believe that there is a difference between a person who has dedicated their life to the embodiment of the principles underlying Chinese medicine and a person who sees it simply as a career choice or something interesting to do for now. The experience of opening one’s self to the medicine completely and seeing what happens is profoundly moving, profoundly changing. Truly great practitioners emerge from this process. The one-on-one patient-practitioner interactions that these practitioners engage in are doing great work for our medicine as a profession, one changed heart at a time.

However, we also need people who can do more than be practitioners, in my opinion. We need people who can go out into the community at large and talk about health, healing and living in harmony with nature. We need people who do not shy away from difficult conversations about our history and our future. We need people who can write, people who are willing to do cross-pollination between disciplines in an overt and publicly available way, people who aren’t afraid to put themselves out there. We need to develop a vibrant community of people who are practitioners but also thinkers, scholars – people who can engage in well researched, passionate and decently written discourse both internally and externally. While a particular educational program is not necessary for that (may great writers have no particular education), in my case it has been helpful.

I was reminded of how something longer than a blog post is written. Your reading always takes longer than you think it will. You need plenty of time to think about it, between reading and writing and revising and reading and writing and revising. You need time to talk things over with peers and advisors. You will always need to read it many more times than you think. You will always open more cans of worms than you close. You will always go through periods of doubt and despair, punctuated with honeymoons of wild elation. It takes time, it takes energy, and it is so worth it. So, I learned (or relearned) quite a bit.

I also rediscovered and refined my passion for Philosophy and opened my interest into a whole new realm. Somehow, all of this has really improved my love for our medicine and has enhanced my clinical practice. So, it’s good all around.

–

Thesis aside – the majority of my time has been spent studying for, and taking, the NCAAOM board exams. I’ve successfully completed the foundations and biomedicine exams already. I found them to be much different from what I was expecting. I know I am not allowed to share much about my experience – but I’ll just say that I don’t think any commercially available study aid helped me…

I’ll talk about this more in my next post. I promise it will be soon. :)

Eric

June 8, 2009 · Filed Under Learning, The profession, Theory

4 Comments

Where I can see light at the end of the tunnel : Chinese medicine senioritis

Now, if you know anything about Google search and “long tail” search results, you’ll know that the title of this blog post is going to get me some very interesting visitors. That being said, I want to give a shout out to all of YOU, my stalwart readers who have stuck with me through ups and downs, through thick and thin, through Yin and Yang, through boom and bust. I know, I know, the content has been slow in coming. You miss me, and I miss you! But, the user base has actually GROWN and that is very heartening. People want to hear more!

I have just about four weeks left of school at NCNM. Two of those weeks are substantial (one more board exam, my thesis defense, a couple of projects) and two are going to be really tough to sit through. :) We have lots of celebrations coming up, lots of weird little requirements to fulfill, paperwork to shuffle, etc…

I finished my thesis! Yes! I plan to release parts of it on the blog over the coming month. It’s not a bad little document, but I really see it as a launching pad for future work. I suppose that was the intent. I’ve also taken and passed two boards (foundations and biomedicine) and am well on my way to being totally comfortable with the third one required for licensure (acupuncture). I’ll be taking the herbal board sometime in the Fall.

Lots and lots and lots has been going on. I’ve opened a clinic with my partner, Amanda, and Brandt Stickley. There’s just so much to talk about there, I can’t even understand how I’m not blogging all the time. Think : new models for healthcare, the ins and outs of legal/financial arrangements, building a medicinary, business planning, so on and so forth. My love for and obsession with Shanghan Lun formulas has expanded by eight million since I’ve been in clinic, which is another treasure trove for blog posts. I’ve learned a lot about how best to learn this medicine from a “learning technology” standpoint – yet another womb for countless blog posts. I mean, seriously, folks – I have plenty to blog about. Just NO TIME. This changes in a couple of weeks.

So, get your RSS readers (or email inboxes, or whatever) ready!

All of that being said, I have an exciting event to announce…

This Saturday – May 30 – on the NCNM Campus Craig Mitchell from Seattle Institute of Oriental Medicine (SIOM) is coming to speak from 9am-5pm! This event is free and open to the public and will be held in Room 322 on the Ross Island Campus. The NCNM Student Government Association is sponsoring this event – one of the last in a great series that featured Patch Adams and Mark Silver, among others.
View NCNM Main Campus : 049 SW Porter, Portland, OR in a Google map

Craig will be holding forth on the topic of the Qi dynamic, Shanghan Lun formulas, and the development of understanding of those formulas through time. We’ll be working through the translation of some text and generally having a wonderful time. Craig is an eminent scholar in our field and we’re really, really lucky to have him come down for this event. If you’re interested and need more details – please contact me! Flyer below.

Eric