introduction

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone,

 

my name is Daniel Rechter and I'm a 1st year Chinese medicine student at

Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia. This is a 4 year course

which streams at the end of 1st year into herbs or acupuncture (with

many subjects in common). I'll take the herb stream, but hopefully

before I finish, there will be an optional 5th year to enable me to pick

up the acupuncture stream. Registration of practitioners came into being

at the beginning of this year in my state (Victoria), and only by doing

the extra training can I call myself both a herbalist [i've noticed that

Americans tend to say AN herbalist, but that's never heard here!] and an

acupuncturist.

 

My earlier attempts in making a career were in the biomedical sciences:

1 year at medical school (hated it), a brief stint at a medical research

institute (same) and a few years as a technician in a research

laboratory (strike 3). I'm a slow learner and like many I came to

Chinese medicine through illness. However long before that my

intellectual interests had turned to social theory and I am finding

Chinese medicine wonderfully creative as a way of looking at people, and

the world.

 

When I was at medical school in 1989, the Australian Medical Association

were out to destroy non-medical acupuncture, and Chinese herbal medicine

was little known and (I believe) just being taught outside the Asian

community for the very first time. As a beginning student now, I have it

much better than any of my forebears. Still I am mindful that without

Chinese language I don't even know what I am missing. In many ways the

discussions on this list (I have been reading quietly for 4 days now)

are beyond me and take time away from mastering the basics, but I also

feel that they can help to guide me as to which basics I need to put in

place. In fact, I do have some idea as to what I'm missing thanks to

this list and other forums like it. Thanks for allowing me to listen in!

 

regards,

 

Daniel

 

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