Deepest Health: Exploring Classical Chinese Medicine » The profession

Do you need help building the practice of your dreams?

Eric — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 20:12:23 +0000

Sure, we all do. I’ve talked about various business topics on Deepest Health. I’ve made some recommendations about books, websites and even courses that might get you closer to your goal of having a vital, abundant Chinese medicine practice. I’ve consumed at least twenty times more content than I’ve recommended – putting only the best and brightest out there for you all to see. I like to think some of these recommendations have been helpful!

One thing I’ve always wanted to do is take what I’ve learned so far about business and feed it into some kind of natural medicine specific business course. I like specialists – I like people who have experience in the particular field I find myself in. I’ve even got some pretty detailed outlines about what I’d like to see in a course like that. It’s just all about finding the time to build the infrastructure and polish the content, not to mention promote it, maintain it, and so on. Just thinking about all that work makes me a little tired, I must admit. :)

Fortunately, I can relax a bit. Someone has beat me to the punch, creating pretty much the same course I would like to have created! My friend Brooke Thomas is about to open enrollment on a practice building course that I believe will be well worth your time and money. I’ve read Brooke’s work and had numerous conversations with her about her experience and her strategies.

I think what she has to offer will be of great benefit to many of you – I’d say particularly to those of you in your final year of practice and those who are just getting their practices together. However, more education is always helpful – and I find that I always learn something from my conversations with Brooke – regardless of where I’ve been in my process. I really enjoyed her free ebook, for example – which is still available by following this link.

I want to offer her own words, first posted on her blog, about what drove her to create this course.

“I recently received an email from an acupuncturist where she told me about how her school constantly repeated the mantra, “In 5 years, 50% of you won’t be working as acupuncturists anymore” to the students. That is all. They never followed that sentence with one that started, “so here’s how you can avoid being a part of that 50%…” Gee thanks guys, the future’s feeling pretty bright now! Here’s my tuition check- or shall I just flush it down the toilet!? To the schools I would like to respectfully say: Don’t take our money, put us through your schools, tell us how we’ll likely fail, and then send us out into the world with no attention paid at all to how we might avoid becoming the aforementioned statistic.

What is wrong with this picture? Why are they such defeatists? What do they think the awful statistics are about? That people who studied acupuncture don’t actually care about acupuncture? That acupuncture doesn’t actually have much to offer people? That they tend to have lazy or flaky graduates? Or could it maybe, just possibly, be because people who love what they do and are committed to sharing it with the world enter that whole private practice thing with little to no idea of how to do that successfully? Maybe? Ya think? Ok, rant over.

AND SO…

In general I find that complaining about what other people should be doing is an ineffective strategy for creating positive change. I can’t really think of many times that straight up complaining got anyone very far. Imagine if Rosa Parks only complained loudly and ceaselessly amongst her friends about how unjust sitting in the back of the bus was, without ever plopping herself in the front of that bus and thereby claiming her own power to make a change? The former strategy wasn’t likely to change history. The latter? Pretty effective.

Ok, so I’m no Rosa Parks. I think that’s fairly obvious. However, because of my own experience of struggling through my first three years in practice and then falling in love with practice building (no one is more surprised than me…) there does happen to be one thing I can do to make some change. I figure if I can pass on the tools and create a place for a supportive community of complementary and alternative medicine providers to gather, then maybe we’ve got a shot at changing the lame statistics. And if we change the lame statistics, then we’ll have a lot more practitioners around and a lot more people getting the help they need.

And so I built Practice Abundance. It’s the result of nearly ten years in practice, starting three practices from scratch, one ebook, one mega manuscript for a printed book, a year and a half blogging about practice building, and lots of conversations with practitioners who felt just as helpless and hopeless as I did when I was starting out. I designed it to be the FULL course that our schools left out, coupled with community warmth and support.”

It seems like Brooke has done all the work necessary to provide that basic, focused business (and marketing!) course that all of our schools should provide – but often don’t.

If any of this speaks to you, I suggest you head over to the early notification list sign-up page. This won’t obligate you to any purchase, but just get you on the list so you can be informed when the course opens for enrollment (March 17-20th). It will also allow you the chance to learn more about the course over the coming days. The “sneak peek” page, linked to on that sign-up page, will show you the information she’s already sent out on the list. Lots of helpful information, including the complete course outline.

** The links to the sign up page are affiliate links – if you end up joining the course, I’ll get a little kick-back. I hope this won’t dissuade you from signing up if you are interested. These little drips of money help me keep Deepest Health running and I still don’t recommend anything I wouldn’t use myself. Seriously.

Do you need help building the practice of your dreams?

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Mahuang (ephedra) and it’s utter legality for Chinese medicine practitioners

Eric — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 16:00:52 +0000

Many practitioners and proprietors of herbal pharmacies are under the mistaken impression that the purchase, storage and prescription of Mahuang (Ephedra) is illegal. It isn’t. I guess I could just keep this post short like that, because it’s really all that needs to be said, but let’s be a little more verbose – shall we?

I was reminded about this issue by a student at NCNM, my friend Tim Rudowsky. He’s an enterprising fellow, always researching, and apparently this issue piqued his interest. See, at the NCNM school pharmacy, students are unable to use Mahuang. Students and professors who have a strong preference for Classical formulas often lament this fact. It’s an issue of particular concern during this time of the year in the cold, wet, windy Columbia River Gorge area. We need our Mahuang!

I wrote a short, simple article about the qualities and uses of Mahuang a while back. I do not use it frequently, but do use it when it is necessary. What would Mahuang Xixin Fuzi Tang be without Mahuang? Has anyone ever had success replacing Mahuang in Gegen Tang or Mahuang Tang?

I thought I had already written on Deepest Health about this important issue. However, it appears that my post never made it out of draft stage. Instead, I had sent an email to my friends and colleagues through our student email list. I’ll post some of the information from that email here:

“I’ve been investigating Mahuang. As you know, there is simply no substitute for it in our materia medica or any other. It’s hard to find, although people in Portland have secured sources. My research indicates that the major herb companies don’t carry it because they are worried about getting into trouble from the FDA – but that research only involves two herb companies – anything but rigorous. Does anyone else have any information?

Anyway – I have not seen any compelling evidence to suggest that we, as licensed acupuncturists, could ever get in trouble for using Mahuang. Read this FDA document about Mahuang, check around page 28. It specifically states that licensed acupuncturists are exempt from the restrictions placed on the major herbal product distributors. I have been searching for some time, and cannot find any evidence that the rule has been amended in any way, so this information would appear to be correct. The same holds for Xixin. You just have to FIND IT, and then you can use it, as far as I can tell.

Here is a short excerpt of the email that my friend Tim sent me about his experience researching Mahuang access:

After an incredible amount of leg-work, I got in contact with the NW FDA rep who sent me the most recent official ruling on the use of Mahuang. No one seems to understand how the herb is to be legally handled, and, in fact, our own medicinary manager is convinced the herb is illegal for prescription in the US. This Federal document explains that Mahuang is completely legal for use by licensed Chinese herbalists as long as it’s not being used, long term, to induce weight loss. (He references the same document that I link to above)

The fact is that despite the fact that there’s no compelling reason for us to stop using Mahuang, it is getting harder and harder to purchase. Qualiherbs, an East coast distributor of Chinese herbs, used to carry it in granules but no longer does so (though I believe they still have some granulated formulas containing Mahuang). I don’t know of any major bulk herb distributors that carry it. What are we to do, as practitioners, to gain access to the herbs we need for the complete practice of our medicine?

AAAOM, our professional organization in the United States, claims to make herbal access one of their main legislative priorities. I don’t have a lot of contact with the organization, so don’t know what they are doing around this issue. However, it has been my experience that working on issues like this is usually made more successful by utilizing the power and legitimacy of a membership driven professional organization. Thinking about this issue makes me more inclined to consider being involved with the AAAOM.

I’m interested to hear from readers on this issue. Do you use Mahuang in your practice? If not, why not? Do you have any more information about Mahuang and its use in the United States? Have anything to say about the AAAOM and their handling of this issue? Have any thoughts about strategies to ensure our access to the herbs we need?

Mahuang (ephedra) and it’s utter legality for Chinese medicine practitioners

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Finding balance between Chinese medicine and running a Chinese medicine based business

Eric — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 02:59:52 +0000

It’s been hard for me to write lately. It’s mostly because when I look at my old entries, particularly those that got a lot of attention, they are nothing like what I think about and write about now. During my second year, and the summer after, I was really just reading and re-reading the material I got from my teachers and thinking about how it applies to life. The summer in particular was an experiment for me, simply to see if I could build a blog talking about Chinese medicine.

Well, I did. With some help from my friends – near and far.

I got an email from a reader recently who told me that he missed my more frequent posting. He wondered what happened to me. In our ensuing exchange, I got some valuable advice. This reader encouraged me to write about whatever it is that I’m working on because that’s what he’s always loved about reading Deepest Health – it’s about one man’s journey into the wild world that is Classical Chinese Medicine. Thanks, reader. You know who you are. It’s true that when I started this blog, I really wanted to dive into everyplace this medicine takes me – how the theory plays out in real life, how it opens into a million different directions, how it changes me – and my patients.

Who knows how I got off track. Let’s get on with it. Today, I’d like to talk about something that’s been on my mind for a couple of weeks as I go about my work stabilizing a new practice in the competitive market of Portland, Oregon.

As a new graduate in Chinese medicine, I had a few options open to me:

Join an established practice. I had a few offers, but to be entirely frank, I knew I wanted to do my own thing with Amanda and whomever else shared our vision. I wouldn’t say I don’t “follow” well, but I just like to experiment, I like to be in control of a business, and it’s really one of the big reasons I ended up choosing this path.
Go in with a bunch of peers to create a group practice. There were a couple of people who talked about this with me, but no one was serious – and all of those people have since gone on to do something else.
Work in some kind of integrative health center or progressive hospital. Plenty of those in the Portland area, but it’s just not my thing. I think integrative medicine is a great field, and more power to those who are interested. It’s just not me.
Work out some kind of residency or other kind of post-graduate education. While this sounded nice, and I’ve actually worked my way into something that looks a little like this, I really needed to start making money right away. I have an adolescent daughter and my partner has been (mostly) supporting us – including my harebrained adventures into blogging – for the last four years. Seems like it might be time for me to put in my hours.
Get some other kind of job as I gradually work my way into a practice of some kind. Just not my style, folks.
Do something other than practice – teach, for instance. I’m doing this, though on a very part time basis. I see myself as primarily a clinician, so gunning hard for teaching positions was never at the top of my list of things to do. However, I do like teaching and I feel incredibly grateful to be in the place I’m in now.
Build a practice from nothing as quickly as possible with few resources. Yeah, I chose that path. :)

It hasn’t been all roses, but I’m fortunate to have an awesome business partner in my life partner, Amanda Barp. I’ve also been blessed to have a lot of help along the way – my internship with Mark Silver and Kate Williams of Heart of Business, the savvy and ever-present advice of NCNM teacher and local Chinese medicine practitioner David Berkshire and of course the friendship and inspiration of my friend and Watershed gift economy superstar, Brandt Stickley. I’ve also been teaching myself business skills since about my second year of CM school. Running this blog taught me a fair bit, in fact.

Not everyone is so lucky, I understand. But even with all of this help, I’ve struggled. Honestly, I expected nothing less. I mean, of course it takes a while to get a practice off the ground. That’s not really what I’m talking about. In fact, weirdly, it’s the fact that I’ve been so good at making this business work that has me perplexed. Seriously!

What’s shiny versus what’s necessary

In Cosmology and Symbolism class with Heiner, we learned a lot about sacrifice. About how the true virtue of Water is to go to the lowest place. About how the Heart is really about making itself small. About the virtue of doing all the dirty work and demanding none of the credit. I’ve always sort of been ok with that. Look, I’m an organized guy. I can hang with spreadsheets. I don’t mind researching legal and financial issues. I like brainstorming, and I like even more building those brainstorms into real action plans. Even more, I like tracking those actions and seeing they become reality. I don’t mind calling up utilities and haggling about charges.

In fact, today, with the help of Amanda, I gleefully entered all of my herbs into inventory tracking. Seriously. With Lot Numbers and vendor contact information and everything. I’m ok with doing these things – and when you start a new practice from the ground, there’s lots of these kinds of things to do. At least if you want to create a solid and steady plan for growth, expansion and reaching out to as many people as possible.

Thing is – these things aren’t shiny. They’re not sexy. They’re not mystical. They’re not the kinds of things that eager, seeking potential patients cozy up to. No one at this point is out in the community saying, “You know, you should really go see Eric Grey – he sure can wield a label maker like nobody’s business.” I mean, really, folks – it’s just not the stuff of Chinese Medicine legend. But – this is the kind of stuff that one must do to walk the path I’ve chosen. And of course, as I’ve mentioned, I don’t mind doing any of it.

Spending your time and speaking your truth

Part of what I’m thinking about is the way that I spend my time and how that can be instructive to others. I’m talking about my actual use of time, but also what I talk about and what I portray in my conversations (whether online or offline). The fact is that while I don’t mind doing these things, it’s not even anywhere close to my passion. It’s not what I bring to the table. It’s not what’s brought me success in the clinic. It’s not, truly, what I’ve been studying these last years. So, I’ve found myself thinking lately about the critical need to keep balance between indulging in my passion for our medicine, particularly herbs in all their glory, and the sort of fun and absolutely necessary grinding work of running a successful business in Portland.

This balance is important. Ridiculously important. Part of its importance has to do with sanity and purpose and all of that. If I don’t feed my need to grow as a scholar and clinician, I’ll get sad. Sad Eric is a terrible father, partner, needler and prescriber. Sad Eric eats waaaaaaaaay too many Newman’s Own Ginger Oh’s. This medicine, these plants, the interactions with patients – these feed my soul. But, also, there’s something about growing a practice. If my passion is underfed, I won’t show it to patients. It won’t come out in my interactions with people in the store. It won’t display on my Facebook status. Won’t come out on my blog. People won’t know who I really am, or who I really hope to be, or who I can help them to be. That’s equally important. So, this balance is important!

I figure I’m not the only one who has ever struggled with this. Funny thing about human experience – no matter how unique a single human thinks their experience, it’s usually pretty resonant with others’ – even in wildly different cultures, professions and demographics. So, I thought I would put this out there. Have you had this experience – or are you having it now? Have any thoughts about this balance and how it is best maintained? I’m working a plan, of course, and it seems to be helping – but let’s see what we can come up with together.

Share your thoughts in the comments. We don’t bite.

Finding balance between Chinese medicine and running a Chinese medicine based business

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A quick update : I’m never leaving NCNM!

Eric — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 00:35:22 +0000

I’m busily working on my next post on the relational method of learning Chinese herbs. I’ll get it out as soon as possible. However, as I’ve been working on this series, something else has been unfolding. I thought I would share it with all of you – my version of shouting it from the rooftops! I was hired to teach a class at NCNM – Herbs lab! The Herbs lab accompanies the single herbs and combinations class. In times past, a variety of formats have been used. I, of course, plan to bring the relational method into play as well as using all the skills I have learned (and will learn) from the incomparable Willem Larsen and Evan Gardner to co-create a community of engaged, rooted learner-teachers. I’m really, really excited. It’s the class I always wanted to teach, and I plan to make the best of it.

Even more exciting, my dear friend Michael Givens is going to be teaching at NCNM as well, as part of the team delivering Formulas knowledge to 3rd year NCNM students. It’s a great honor for me to teach alongside him and, of course, my brother Brandt Stickley. It’s very nearly overwhelming, also, to think about teaching on the same faculty as Heiner Fruehauf, Haosheng Zhang, Paul Kalnins and all the rest of my esteemed teachers. It’s an honor beyond honors.

So, to all of you NCNM 2nd years reading this blog : Let’s get to work developing Chinese herbal FLUENCY!

To the rest of my readers, I’m sure I will have lots of interesting new stories to share. I will also be able to kick my online course creation process into high gear, as I will be testing and refining all of my ideas on a live audience! :)

I hope to get the next post in the series out tomorrow.

A quick update : I’m never leaving NCNM!

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Live near Portland and want to learn the basics of Classical Chinese herbal formulas?

Eric — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 20:08:41 +0000

At our new clinic, Watershed Community Wellness, we will be hosting and teaching a number of classes and other gatherings. Brandt Stickley, renown pulse teacher and Gift Economy visionary is currently teaching classes in Contemporary Pulse Diagnosis, for example. We will be offering free classes for patients about herbal formula preparation, eating in alignment with the seasons, Qigong healing, self massage and much more. We also hope to become a hub for co-teaching and sharing experiences for Chinese medicine and massage practitioners and students concerning a wide variety of topics from cosmology to website creation to moving beyond the Community Acupuncture model.

Today, I’m happy to announce a new class offering of interest to anyone who would like to understand the basics of Classical formula prescribing. Michael Givens is a recent graduate of the National College of Natural Medicine and writer of an incredible feat of scholarship that won the NCNM 2009 Best Thesis Award. He has been studying Chinese philosophy and medicine for many years and also has a breadth of teaching experience ranging from high school literature to, recently, many topics in Chinese Medicine as a tutor at NCNM. He has also been teaching classes since graduation to help people dive deeper into Classical Chinese philosophy and herbalism. He is a great friend of mine and I have the utmost respect for both his knowledge and his skill in teaching. Below, find his description of a new class he will be offering at Watershed Community Wellness in Portland in early September. If you are interested in signing up for the class, or just getting more information, please contact Michael at shangguzhiren at gmail dot com or you can contact me using the contact form on my “about” page (click the tab along the top of this page).

Introduction to Classical Formulas

This course will prepare you for studying the classical formulas of the Shanghan Lun , as well as establish a firm basis of all formulas study. If you already have a strong formulas education but would like to dig deeper into the text of the Shanghan lun, this class is also for you.

We will be reading and analyzing the introductory lines of each of the conformations in the Shanghan lun, discussing the fundamental formulas in each chapter, and exploring how they are representative of the physiology and pathology of each of the conformations.

This course is will meet for 3 hours on two Saturdays.

Date and Location (subject to change, full notice will be given): Saturday 9/ 5 and Saturday 9/12, 9-noon at Watershed Community Wellness. Fee is $120 per student, payable by cash or check at the beginning of the first class.

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Live near Portland and want to learn the basics of Classical Chinese herbal formulas?

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Wikipedia page about Classical Chinese Medicine : calling all scholars!

Eric — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 16:54:50 +0000

Interestingly, I believe that I was the first person to create a Wikipedia page about Classical Chinese Medicine. Since then, it has been rewritten, co-opted and sometimes even just erased! Currently, the Wikipedia community is discussing what to do with the article (which now contains almost nothing of my original write-up) and it would be great if Deepest Health readers could go join the fray. The neutrality of the article is being disputed, it is said there are factual errors within it and some have even suggested it should just be merged into the “Traditional Chinese Medicine” page!

For my part, I think one of the commenters over on the talk page makes a good point. We should just have a “Chinese Medicine” page that then talks about the standardization process under Mao Zedong and discusses the response of people who talk about “Classical Chinese Medicine,” as well as, perhaps, other schools of thought. Anyway, it’s an interesting opportunity to shape one small part of the public face of Chinese medicine. Since Wikipedia articles often rank so highly in Google searches, imagine the legions of high school and college students writing papers (sure, on Chinese medicine, why not?) and referencing Wikipedia…

We want them to have the right information, folks. Think of the children!

Go contribute to the discussion at Wikipedia.

Eric

Wikipedia page about Classical Chinese Medicine : calling all scholars!

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Phenomenology and Classical Chinese medicine : brief conclusions, opening doors

Eric — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:12:00 +0000

Here are the last few paragraphs of my thesis in Chinese medicine for my MSOM degree at National College of Natural Medicine. As you can probably tell, I did not go as far with any of my research topics as I would have liked. I saw it mainly as a way to learn what resources existed, and sketch a general outline of where I would like to go with my investigations. I have to be frank, I haven’t yet taken the time to explore these topics much more deeply – I’ve been trying to rejuvenate myself from the rigors of school while also opening the clinic and writing more on this blog. However, I have all of the resources amassed and lots of brainstorms and outlines ready to be further explored. I’ll definitely share my ongoing investigations with Deepest Health readers.

—

Read Part I of the final chapter of my thesis

Read Part II of the final chapter of my thesis

—

First, the system must demonstrate a basic level of effectiveness. This could include evidence in the contemporary Western sense of controlled laboratory or clinical research, but could also include a mature history of effectiveness, such as Chinese medicine has in its extensive written record. Obviously, it could also include currently undeveloped research methodologies such as I discussed in Whole Systems Research. It will almost certainly also include so far undiscovered methods of obtaining knowledge.

Second, it must demonstrate its inclusion of a mature system of practitioner education and basic regulation of ongoing practitioner behavior. This simply means that an included system of medicine should show that it is making active attempts to behave ethically and to ensure that its practitioners obtain the highest level of education that is possible. External governmental controls could also be developed that both respect the integrity of the community of practitioners while providing the public with a sense of safety.

Third, a system of medicine should be open to discussion and evaluation by other systems. These interactions should be governed by an understanding that such interaction is for the benefit of all involved, not intended to discredit or eliminate one system in favor of another. Practitioners of each system should seek to become steeped in the foundational material of the other system before they seek to criticize it, as this will make for a more productive and scholarly interaction. My thoughts on this point resonate with the early philosophical work of Alasdair MacIntyre as developed in his book, After Virtue, published in 1981.

Finally, a system of medicine should not be integrated into the larger health care system until it demonstrates its safety for general use. As I’ve already mentioned, one of the biggest concerns about alternative medicine is whether it is safe. This is to be understood, since the primary guiding principle of all medical practice is to “first, do no harm.” Whether by laboratory testing, historical record or some other acceptable method, the system should indicate that its diagnostics and therapies meet a minimum standard of safety. Further, as stated before, the profession should be internally or externally regulated in an adequate way to ensure that practitioners are making safety a primary focus of daily practice.

Of course, there is a viable system of medicine that meets all of these criteria – Chinese medicine.

Chinese medicine not only meets the criteria above, but is also an ideal vehicle for avoiding the kind of objectification of patients that I am arguing against. In Chinese medicine, one always considers the more physical, measurable characteristics of a person as well as the less measurable, subtler features of his mental and social situation. In fact, such a separation of features of the person’s experience is simply not done. Every single identified sign or symptom is taken into the diagnostic framework and interpreted. This includes the more precise information as might be included on a laboratory report. But it also, and more commonly, includes the patient’s vague and self-defined complaints (“fuzzy headed,” “stuck,” and so on). Further, it relies on the complex and embodied senses of the practitioner to accurately observe and interpret the symbolic information inherent in face color and quality, pulse rate and quality, nail bed color and quality and so on. While this may seem a hopeless mess of factors that cannot possibly result in effective diagnosis, much less treatment, such is not the case. Diagnosis does happen, and so does healing. Chinese medicine, through its use of symbol, of metaphor, and its integration of the various subtle meanings and meetings within a human life both in diagnosis and in treatment – has a unique and time tested way to bring the interpretive meeting back into medicine.

In sum, I believe that medicine is not the kind of activity that can, or should, be governed by single-minded adherence to the analytical sciences as they are currently practiced in most places in First world nations. Such devotion to technological medicine encourages a compartmentalized way of viewing the body and the human being’s place in the universe while also producing a distance between doctor and patient that is not conducive to healing. We need not abandon the analytical tradition or the fine tools brought to us by contemporary Western medical practice. But nor should we attempt to eradicate all systems of medicine that fail to meet our ideological standards concerning evidence. Condemning disciplines based on ideological notions of “pseudoscience” cannot be helpful for patients. A more inclusive approach respects the integrity of safe, integral and mature disciplines while acknowledging the need for the public to feel reasonably assured concerning their safety and effectiveness.

Phenomenology and Classical Chinese medicine : brief conclusions, opening doors

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What constitutes a thriving profession : Chinese medicine’s future

Eric — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 23:15:30 +0000

I’m positively buried in a ton of unbelievably exciting business work, all of which will be coming out in a series of posts sometime in the not-too-distant future. When I’m not working on that stuff, I’m hiding from the brutal heatwave that is currently crouching over my fair city, Portland. However, I’ve found some time to engage in a rather lively conversation in the comments on my recent post about a post on another blog concerning the Lingshu and the superior physician. This discussion, and a conversation I’ve been in with a close friend for the last year, has me thinking about the future of Chinese medicine. It should be noted that, as an American, I’m almost certainly talking about the American profession of Chinese medicine – as different places have their own eccentricities to reckon with. But, some of what I think about may have relevance – particularly in other Westernized countries.

I’m new to this profession. Very new! Folks like Bob Flaws, Heiner Fruehauf, Dan Bensky, Leon Hammer and other long-time practitioners surely have a more seasoned perspective on the whole matter. I’m sure they have seen trends come and go, have seen government become more and less interested, seen the tide of popularity spike and settle down. I crave that perspective. Unfortunately, I’m stuck with my own for now.

Below, find my Chinese medicine profession wish list. These are the things I would like to see grow and thrive in our profession in the next 10 years. You’ll notice that much of it evades ever being “done” at all, being more process oriented than outcome oriented. But, I’d like to see significant progress made on these fronts in the next decade.

More intelligent, intentional dialogue : There are already good conversations going on here at Deepest Health, as well as at blogs, conferences, schools and other places all over the country (and the world). However, I would like to see even more overt, intentional, respectful conversation going on between people who respect one another’s opinions and are open-minded enough to have their opinions changed. This can happen electronically, in person, on the phone, by Skype, on blogs, through Twitter, in journals and magazines – any method is fine, so long as ideas are being exchanged and the general level of understanding is being elevated.
More publications : Here, I’m thinking specifically about magazines and journals. I would love to see more topical, peer-reviewed Chinese medicine journals. While research briefs are interesting, if you’re into that, I’d like to see a wider range of articles being published. I think the Lantern is a good example of something I’d like to see done more often. I would also love to see more blogs, more magazine-style websites and even zines or other DIY publications done by students, practitioners, patients and groups who are passionate about Chinese medicine.
More residencies : Why don’t I just say, “Any residencies.” Some folks want post-graduate education in a residency style. While people are capable of forging their own post-graduate relationships and creating residency-like positions, I really think a more organized, institutionally supported program would be helpful for students. In showing new students that we are serious about fostering their clinical success, we will improve the quality of applicants and build the profession for the future.
More research into the Classics : I would love to see little institutes springing up all over the country that pay visiting scholars to give talks and do research into Classical topics. I might start one of my own someday. ;)
More business and personal cultivation taught in the schools : I’m surprised how many graduates leave Chinese medicine school not knowing how to care for themselves, personally or professionally. It’s not just us, many graduates of many types of programs feel the same way. Why is it so hard to teach practical skills? Who is doing this better than us, and how can we emulate them?
Board exams that make sense : I mean, seriously.
More easily available information on herbal quality and availability : Many people have no idea where they can get good quality Chinese herbs. I was just informed of a company I have never heard of that seems to have incredible product – and I’ve been doing research for almost two years! What of those who don’t know how to get started on such a research project? They may just end up using whatever the school clinic uses, for better or worse. This isn’t good for our profession and certainly isn’t good for smaller herb companies without the funding to advertise in Acupuncture Today or similar publications. It would be a great boon if the schools would teach a class about evaluating herbal quality. I suppose that might not be popular with all the herb companies…
More control over our destiny, particularly regarding herbal access : For me, this may actually be #1. I shouldn’t have to hunt so long and so hard to find Xi Xin and Ma Huang. These herbs are not dangerous in the hands of trained and licensed Chinese herbalists. I’m not going to go on and on about this point right now, but I think this should be the number one priority of the AAAOM. I know they are working on it, I’d like to see their efforts triple. Of course, that’s going to mean tripling my donation. :)

What would be on your Chinese medicine profession wish list? Let us know in the comments. I would love to hear everyone’s thoughts – whether experienced and informed or brash and absurd. All kinds are welcome here at Deepest Health. :)

Eric

What constitutes a thriving profession : Chinese medicine’s future

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