Holistic vets

[Guest guest]

Todd - you seem to claim that there are no knowledgeable veterinarians teaching

TCM and that we are all making up our idea of doses and strategies from scratch

at the present time.

 

Firstly, the two main teachers in North America teach all over the U.S. and

Canada. Steve Marsden is a DVM, ND (from the NCNM), LAc, MSOM and spends alot

of time in China (and speaks Chinese). He teaches at the major conferences as

well as intensives. Huisheng Xie is a DVM, PhD, 5th generation herbalist from

China who teaches a 200 hour introductory chinese herb course, as well as

offering a masters in veterinary chinese medicine. K.C. Hwang is a DVM, PhD from

China who teaches acupuncture introductions at a vet school. I take issue with

your claim that we are making this up from scratch as there are excellent

teachers and substantial numbers of veterinarians practicing TCM successfully

now.

 

Secondly, Cheryl Schwartz has WAY more knowledge and experience treating cats

than any nonveterinarian using TCM. Cats are extremely sensitive to drugs

because they have easily oxidized red blood cells, don't glucuronidate well and

lots of other oddities. Her doses are probably low for two reasons - 1. cats

are sensitive and 2. the book is for the public. It is simply not used in

professional veterinary herbal training.

 

I hate to sound defensive, but chinese veterinary herbal medicine is NOT, as you

say, a 'crap shoot', and it is NOT advisable to simply start out treating

animals based solely on comprehensive knowledge of animals have different

syndromes and veterinarians have seen more of these than almost any LAc in the

U.S.

 

 

>> Since

> there is no history of treating cats in TCM, who was the experienced master

chinese vet

> who trained these folks? No one, that's who.

[Guest guest]

, <swynndvm@b...> wrote:

 

>

> I hate to sound defensive, but chinese veterinary herbal medicine is NOT, as

you say, a

'crap shoot', and it is NOT advisable to simply start out treating animals based

solely on

comprehensive knowledge of animals have different syndromes and

veterinarians

have seen more of these than almost any LAc in the U.S.

 

Susan

 

with all due respect, you missed my point. I think in order to treat animals,

you need

expert knowledge in BOTH TCM and veterinary medicine, not one or the other.

While I do

not doubt the credentials of those teachers whom who mentioned, but you

conveniently

sidestepped my main point here as well. Weekend workshops or 200 hour courses

are

inadequate training for chinese herbology. If Mr. Marsden or others offered a

2 year

course that all TCM herbal vets had to take, I would rescind my comments (he

himself is

clealry fully qualified). I would also submit that since most vets do

multimodality

treatment, there is really no basis to evaluate their skills at herbology.

L.Ac. have to jump

through massive training hoops and take many exams to prove ourselves and I

still

question the efficacy of many of my peers.

 

I have no doubt that all of you are well intentioned people who have helped far

more

animals than I ever will. I only treat my animals with full knowledge of their

medical

diagnosis from a vet and while I have no doubt there are some vets out there who

meet my

criteria, I have not met them personally. So-called holistic vets have

repeatedly injured my

cats. I had a vet in Portland whose basis for treating with chinese herbs was

clearly based

upon four paws, five elements, not formal training, so your comment that this

book is for

laypeople seems to have been missed by some vets. Lets get real here.

Veterinary

medicine, like acupuncture and chiropractic, depends on advertising and

competition.

there are no animal HMOs. This situation breeds abuse in all three professions

in order to

make a buck. So my point again is that if someone claims to be a TCM vet, dig

deeper and

find out where they were actually trained and then make up your mind.

Advertising is no

basis for medical decisions. I would hope that vets, like chiros and MDs, would

respect

the time necessary to do TCM herbology or take a consultant into your practice.

 

I also need to qualify my statements about cats and vacuities. I should have

said a cat fed

optimum nutrition is far more likely to experience excess than vacuity, IMO.

However

most cats are fed crap, so I take back this claim. Perhaps one of the failings

of my vets

was assuming my cats were vacuous (because perhaps many are, due to diet), but

mine

were not.

 

[Guest guest]

, <swynndvm@b...> wrote:

 

 

> Firstly, the two main teachers in North America teach all over the U.S. and

Canada.

Steve Marsden is a DVM, ND (from the NCNM), LAc, MSOM and spends alot of time in

China (and speaks Chinese). He teaches at the major conferences as well as

intensives.

Huisheng Xie is a DVM, PhD, 5th generation herbalist from China who teaches a

200 hour

introductory chinese herb course, as well as offering a masters in veterinary

chinese

medicine. K.C. Hwang is a DVM, PhD from China who teaches acupuncture

introductions at

a vet school. I take issue with your claim that we are making this up from

scratch as there

are excellent teachers and substantial numbers of veterinarians practicing TCM

successfully now.

 

Susan

 

Your post reveals another glaring diffrence between you and I on this matter. I

value

chinese medicne because of its long tradition. there is no tradition of feline

medicine in

china, so NO ONE has a classically grounded experience. I think experience

without

tradition and training leads to erroneous conclusions. So I do still think its

a crap shoot.

A single generation of anecdotes is as meaningless to me in animal medicine as

it is

human medicine. To adapt TCM based upon experience requires deep study of the

classic

subject, many, many generations of collected anecdotes and/or modern research to

verify

it all. Without an established consensus of experts across many generations,

what do we

have? I can't say for others, but little of interest to me.