Guest guest Posted April 2, 2000 Report Share Posted April 2, 2000 If the doctorate will be the terminal degree for the profession, then it must require basic medical Chinese. Otherwise, the field will continue to develop with little conection to its roots. If the doctors don't learn medical chinese, then who will? The sinologists have no clinical experience, so they are only partially helpful. And many experienced American clinicians wish they could now eat their earlier uninformed words from many occasions (myself included). I think the resistance to Chinese already expressed on this list speaks for itself. If the schools made this requirement, they would have very few students. Some may call this cynical, but what other reason could there be? Personally, I know how to count strokes, copy characters, look up characters in a Chinese dictionary. But I can identify very few characters, don't know any grammar, can't speak a word with the proper tone. I'm not good at languages, so I think anyone could learn this much in 12 hours. At that point, you basically have the skills to go further. In order to recognize characters, the best way is to copy them, copy whole passages, then translate them. Bob flaw's book is useful for many people. Zev Rosenberg is using a different method. I think my limitations in learning medical Chinese are an argument against me studying for a doctorate. However, in a structured group program, I think I could probably do basic translation inside a year or less without unduly burdening myself. By all accounts, it is just not that hard. Those who are opposed may not realize there is a big difference between learning medical chinese and learning chinese. Learning Chinese takes about 2-3 hours of combined classroom and study four days a week for four years. Medical Chinese takes about two hours per week for a year. So I think its doable. But only if the American doctoral faculty get on board. A number of years ago, an NIH funded study was done in Portland to assess the efficacy of danggui in menopause. This was based on the uninformed opinion that dang gui was the menopausal herb of choice (astute herbalists, please don't laugh yet). When the researchers checked with the local TCM community including Americans at the local college, this was confirmed. Now, if anyne inthe process had actual access to chinese sources and/or based their knowledge on such authentic sources, they would have discovered that the chinese had long ago dismissed dang gui as having any estrogenic effect. Its use in menopause is more superficial: it is emollient to the skin and bowels. It relieves pain and normalizes blood flow. Millions of dollars and black eye for chinese herbalism could have been avoided. Is this the standard we want to set for future research? The first phase in a proposed study is a literature review. To ignore the chinese data because no one can read chinese is beyond ludicrous. Not to mention our tax dollars being put to good use, as usual. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 2, 2000 Report Share Posted April 2, 2000 In a message dated 4/2/00 2:33:24 PM, writes: << If the doctorate will be the terminal degree for the profession, then it must require basic medical Chinese. >> What if it is the entry level degree, with PhD's developed later? What about 100 years from now? It is a cultural difference, not a language one. Knowledge of the language can certainly help, but immersion into the culture viaq understnading and feeling the medicine cna be had without it, in that it is obvious, just as " science " is. David Molony Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 2, 2000 Report Share Posted April 2, 2000 I can't agree with you here, David. Immersing oneself in a culture can certainly marinate one in a stew of innate knowledge. . .but one cannot practice any SCIENCE without a technical language. For Chinese medicine, that technical language is medical Chinese. It can be learned by buying the Wiseman Clinical Dictionary of , the most important text yet published for our profession. >In a message dated 4/2/00 2:33:24 PM, writes: > ><< If the doctorate will be the terminal degree for the profession, then it >must require basic medical Chinese. >> > >What if it is the entry level degree, with PhD's developed later? >What about 100 years from now? It is a cultural difference, not a language >one. Knowledge of the language can certainly help, but immersion into the >culture viaq understnading and feeling the medicine cna be had without it, in >that it is obvious, just as " science " is. >David Molony > >------ >Get a NextCard Visa, in 30 seconds! >1. Fill in the brief application >2. Receive approval decision within 30 seconds >3. Get rates as low as 2.9% Intro or 9.9% Fixed APR >Apply NOW! >http://click./1/2646/6/_/542111/_/954738593/ >------ > >Chronic Diseases Heal - Chinese Herbs Can Help Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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