Biomedical Jr

[Guest guest]

I can't find the post right now, but I remember reading something

earlier today that awke my interest. It was about the allied health

professionals coming to TCM school, and the biomedical Jr.s'

 

I was hesitant to respond to the etheric conversation (it is a

conversation that takes place in the ether, enabling us to be

more frank than we might be face to face). Perhaps it's because I

at one time had a strong desire to be a doctor, and I still have

great respect for the bloody and wearying work they do. Perhaps

it's because my flip remark about my GPA seemed to have

sparked further conversation. Seriosly, my GPA wasn't all that

bad, especially after the grade inflation at my TCM school.

 

But I feel like I would like to make two points. As a former

medical technologist, I, and even more so, my friend who was a

nurse, have seen sights that served as a visceral compulsion to

heal. Having seen a patient reduced to almost inhuman states,

makes those of us who are sensitive sincerely want to keep

them from that place. I used to stand in horrified amazement at

the side of an ICU bed, trying to decide on a place to draw blood

from, when all I could hear was the slurp of the suction device on

the throat, and the groans of the confused patient who could't

present well enough to opt out, and thus was tied to the bed, to

prevent him/her from disengaging from catheters, IV's, and other

instruments of salvation. This sorry state of affairs is no one's

fault in particular, not the family, who fear death and their own

guilt over not having done enough, not the doctors, who are so

tired they can barely function, and fear the wrath of the family...but

it is a sad thing. Nevertheless, I am proud of having been there,

to witness what passes for normal every day. I would not forego

the experience.

 

Secondly, the people I respect the most and seek to emulate are

those who have a functioining left and right brain. For instance,

Emmanuel has earned my respect with both his hunger for

scientific minutae and his poetic eloquence. Todd speaks in the

measured tone of the biochemist he once was, and yet, I sense

a finely honed sensitivity as well. What I don't care for is the

intellectual laziness condoned in some artistic circles. Picking

up a paintbrush does not make you an artist, but it may provide

you with the excuse of a " sensitive, creative temprament " that just

can't function with a schedule and demands of occasionally

picking up a textbook.

 

I had to memorize the Krebs cycle, which didn't do much for me

in the entertainment department, but it did make me more willing

to memorize charts of herbs in graduate school. At least I could

do more with the herbs than with gluconeogenesis. I was a little

impatient with the students who diverted the classes away from

track onto thier own personal litany of physical complaints. The

problem I have with new-agey is that I don't think that having a

great heart chakra expansion should be an excuse for not

functioning in clinic for three weeks, and letting your patients and

partner down. That does not mean that I don't ocassionally have

some strange sensations myself, such as when I feel the

spiderwort spirit is in my treatment room bringing a lavender

beautiful energy to my client. But I don't advertise this, not do I

use my poetic imaginative streak as an excude to avoid onerous

tasks.

 

Nuff said, maybe more than.

Gabrielle

[Guest guest]

, " gabriellemathieu "

<gabriellemathieu> wrote:

> I can't find the post right now, but I remember reading something

> earlier today that awke my interest. It was about the allied health

> professionals coming to TCM school, and the biomedical Jr.s'

>

 

I don't think anyone here would argue your points, least of all me.

I have nothing but respect and admiration for the biomedical

profession -- many living members of my immediate family (most

recently my infant son) would be very dead right now if it weren't

for heroic intervention on the part of biomedicine. I actually enjoy

having students from allied health professions for the same reason I

alluded to in my last post, it forces me to stretch beyond my

boundaries and confront my own laziness, shore up my weak points

etc. I don't think anyone here condones intellectual laziness. My

point was not about " biomedical Jr.s " i.e. individuals at all, it was

about the transformation of OM to a sort of shadow biomedicine,

trying to recreate what biomedicine already does so well only with

herbs and acupuncture. The chiros have tried a similar strategy and

gotten nothing but scorn from biomedicine. Do we want to do the same?

 

 

My points were for inclusion of *everyone* who is interested,

sincere, open, and hardworking in order to retain some sense of

balance and doing what IMHO OM is actually good at -- nurturing life,

keeping people healthy as opposed to crisis intervention. My point

was that we need to be very careful before we start constructing

barriers based on ridiculous stereotypical criteria ( " new-age " what

does that mean? Is a Tibetan Buddhist " new-age " , how about shamans?

Do we search your backpack for evidence of tarot cards and sage

before you walk in school, have " crystal detectors " set up in the

entrance?). How many of us here would have been turned away from the

profession if the prereqs included the same classes as med students?

Do we think valuable contributions have been made to OM by people

with no scientific background?

 

No question med/science background is useful, perhaps even crucial,

to continued success and development in the field. But we need to be

careful about marginalizing people with liberal arts or humanities

backgrounds as being irrelevant to the field as well, using

dismissive attitudes and language that stanch dialogue.

 

Everyone agrees that biomedicine is a necessary and marvelous thing --

but most everyone agrees that there is something missing in it... it

has been carried away by its own technology and in many ways blinded

by its own stunning success. If we just attempt to recreate this

with our medieval agrarian methods, we will always fall short and may

in fact make ourselves irrelevant in the long run.

 

One more thing before I end my rant for the morning: those who say

the metaphysical has NEVER been part of " mainstream Chinese internal

medicine " please explain the Shennong Bencao Jing -- was this not for

centuries the standard " mainstream " materia medica? If so, then do

you rationalize away all the ghost references as psychiatric

phenomena, the flying references as hypnotic states? If so, aren't

you reconstructing CM history to fit your own perceptions and biases?

 

robert hayden

 

" Come, come again, whoever you are, come!

Heathen, fire worshipper or idolatrous, come!

Come even if you broke your penitence a hundred times,

Ours is the portal of hope, come as you are. "

-Rumi

[Guest guest]

The ghosts and demons have always been there, despite attempts to

expurgate them from modern CM discourses. And we always have had the

wu zhi, the hun, shen, yi, po and zhi. Again, under the pressures of

scientism, there is an embarrassment about these things.

 

For me, and it may be a limited point of view, it doesn't really matter

if psychological disorders such as hearing voices, seeing ghosts, etc.

come from 'out there' or 'inside'. The prescriptions in CM, such as in

Sun Si-miao's work (including the 'ghost points'), do have application

for modern psychological disorders where people experience these things.

 

 

On Monday, March 31, 2003, at 05:20 AM, kampo36 wrote:

 

> One more thing before I end my rant for the morning: those who say

> the metaphysical has NEVER been part of " mainstream Chinese internal

> medicine " please explain the Shennong Bencao Jing -- was this not for

> centuries the standard " mainstream " materia medica? If so, then do

> you rationalize away all the ghost references as psychiatric

> phenomena, the flying references as hypnotic states? If so, aren't

> you reconstructing CM history to fit your own perceptions and biases?

[Guest guest]

I agree 100%. The issue is the direction of CM education in the West.

I've always argued at PCOM that we are not trying to become second-rate

M.D.'s or P.A.'s, but to find the relevant biomedical data and courses

to allow us to access the data that was essential for communication

with patients and physicians. Also, to know when a patient had a

specific disease that required a different type of practitioner.

 

I also think we have as much to share and learn with naturopathy,

homeopathy and Ayurved/Tibetan medicine as with Western medicine.

 

It makes as much sense to me to 'integrate' with these medicines, as

with biomedicine.

 

Why is one called 'eclectic' when one accesses these medicines (and I

don't clinically), but not when one mishmashes WM and CM? I don't see

a coherent model out there for integrated CM and biomedicine.

 

From what I've heard so far, and correct me if I'm wrong, the new

proposals for this new accredidation group are for more WM hours, but

not more CM. And zero Chinese language.

 

 

On Monday, March 31, 2003, at 05:20 AM, kampo36 wrote:

 

> My

> point was not about " biomedical Jr.s " i.e. individuals at all, it was

> about the transformation of OM to a sort of shadow biomedicine,

> trying to recreate what biomedicine already does so well only with

> herbs and acupuncture. The chiros have tried a similar strategy and

> gotten nothing but scorn from biomedicine. Do we want to do the same?

>

[Guest guest]

, " " wrote:

> For me, and it may be a limited point of view, it doesn't really

matter if psychological disorders such as hearing voices, seeing

ghosts, etc. come from 'out there' or 'inside'. The prescriptions in

CM, such as in Sun Si-miao's work (including the 'ghost points'), do

have application for modern psychological disorders where people

experience these things. >>>

 

 

Z'ev:

 

Can you give some examples?

 

 

Jim Ramholz

[Guest guest]

I agree 100%. The issue is the direction of CM education in the West. I've always argued at PCOM that we are not trying to become second-rate M.D.'s or P.A.'s, but to find the relevant biomedical data and courses to allow us to access the data that was essential for communication with patients and physicians. Also, to know when a patient had a specific disease that required a different type of practitioner.

>>>Why not also use information to advance, develop, evaluate, combine, in the treatment aspects of OM?

Alon

[Guest guest]

WM and CM? I don't see a coherent model out there for integrated CM and biomedicine

>>>Zev many in China are doing it. If you see my abdominal book for example you can see a quite coherent example.

Alon

[Guest guest]

I like your book, Alon. But my point is that from within Chinese

medicine itself, what is the innovation? What new developments of

classical theory are being discussed in the journals, books, and

elsewhere? Some, I assume, but not much. I am talking more at the

theory level than the practical.

 

 

On Monday, March 31, 2003, at 09:07 AM, ALON MARCUS wrote:

 

> WM and CM?  I don't see

> a coherent model out there for integrated CM and biomedicine

> >>>Zev many in China are doing it. If you see my abdominal book for

> example you can see a quite coherent example.

> Alon

>

<image.tiff>

>

>

> Chinese Herbal Medicine, a voluntary organization of licensed

> healthcare practitioners, matriculated students and postgraduate

> academics specializing in Chinese Herbal Medicine, provides a variety

> of professional services, including board approved online continuing

> education.

>

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>

[Guest guest]

I like your book, Alon. But my point is that from within Chinese medicine itself, what is the innovation

>>The use of attacking methods was greatly expended in the treatment of acute abdomen because the understanding of the pathology. The understanding of "evil-qi" affecting the true (because of biomedical understanding of the disease process) has allowed the use of attacking methods in patients were traditional 4 exam would have usually prohibited a drastic treatment. And that is only one example.

Alon