Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)

A visit to a traditional Chinese Hospital was the highlight of the day. There were so many extraordinary and eye-opening experiences that picking just a few to share is challenging!

Generally, the enormity of it was overwhelming. From the capacity (650 beds), to staff (1200), to total patients seen per day (5000), to the pharmacy (delivering 4 tons of medicine per day), what becomes obvious is the scope of health care in China now, and what those amazing statistics we learned previously portends for the future.

Our lecture outlined the five aspects that constitute TCM: nutrition, lifestyle, emotion, exercise, and mental fitness. The details revealed that many of our tenets of preventative health are similar to these aspects. The details also revealed that we can be very different in how we practice these aspects/tenets. As an example, our presenter recommends chewing black beans (don't go out and try this as I'm leaving out a few details). He called this Tai Chi for the tongue!

It will be interesting to watch the interplay and integration of Eastern and Western medicine in China as the country continues its social and economic reforms.

Plane ride tomorrow!

1 comment:

Grace-Anne Alfiero, BBF said...

What a great account of your trip and your adventures! Travel safe back home, I am so proud to have been your college roomie decades ago!