What will be the future of Chinese medicine ah

Three TCM authorities talk about the future of TCM!

Deng Tietao (lifelong professor of the Guangzhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, doctoral supervisor, executive director of the All-China Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine, the national famous veteran Chinese medicine practitioners):

In the 20th century, some of China's culture and academia of the traditional culture of the less than a comprehensive evaluation and understanding of the belief that in order to carry forward the development of Chinese medicine, it is necessary to use the model of Western medicine and theories to help the Chinese medical science. Under the influence of this point of view, Chinese medicine, no matter medical, teaching, research, all draw on the model of Western medicine, showing a strong tendency to orient Chinese medicine to the evaluation system and track of Western medicine. However, because Chinese and Western medicine are two different academic systems, the model of Western medicine has brought more constraints than help to the academic Chinese medicine, more than half a century of history has proved this point, today should be the time to realize.

Western medicine is micro-medicine, Chinese medicine is macro-medicine, both are science. But now everyone only recognizes the Western scientific model as science, and although Chinese medicine can cure diseases that Western medicine can't, it doesn't fit the model and is "unscientific". I wonder if this is cultural Western hegemony?

All TCM practitioners should study, research, and explore the classics and cultural essence of TCM, which is the right direction for modernizing TCM. Don't make the mistake of mistaking the transformation of Chinese medicine into Western medicine for the modernization of Chinese medicine. Nor should you think that entering the American market with Chinese medicine is modernization and internationalization. Wrongly, we are not developing Chinese medicine for acceptance by the West. This not only involves national self-esteem, it should be clear that modernization is not the purpose, serving the population is the purpose. First of all, we should think about the 1.3 billion people, to protect the health of the Chinese people is our contribution to the world.

You Qianqian (M.D., University of Melbourne, Australia; Ph.D., Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, China):

As far as I understand it, at present, the foreign medical profession generally believes that there are two kinds of medicine: mainstream medicine and alternative medicine. In China, Western medicine has now achieved the status of mainstream medicine. The reason why mainstream medicine recognizes the existence of alternative medicine is that human life is limited, and it is a very realistic need to alleviate illness and prolong life. Western medicine, at least for the time being, is not able to take care of everything, in which case it is inevitable to look for alternatives in the existing human experience of struggling with disease.

Many ethnic groups have their own traditional medicine, and Chinese medicine combines the art of healing with Chinese philosophical thinking, using philosophical language to express illnesses and theories to guide the healing process, which is the most systematic and longest-standing method of alternative medicine, and can be said to be the oldest medicine with the strongest vitality. The successful treatment of SARS last year is a very convincing example.

Deng Tietao: "SARS" is a kind of warm disease, and Chinese medicine has a long history of treating warm diseases and has accumulated a lot of successful experience. Last year, two hospitals attached to the Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine treated SARS with Chinese medicine as the main treatment, and the effect was remarkable. Of the 36 cases of SARS patients admitted to the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, none of them died, and none of the medical staff was infected. The vast majority of patients were discharged from the hospital without any sequelae. The average time for patients to recover from fever was 2.97 days, and the average length of hospitalization was 8.86 days (not counting those who were automatically discharged).

These cases were all diagnosed with SARS by western medicine, treated with Chinese medicine, and then confirmed cured by western medicine, all with strict case records.

Our country's emphasis on the West is light in the phenomenon of serious, Western medicine a little achievement on the publicity, Chinese medicine a little achievement, the first to say, "I do not know whether it is reliable"; even if confirmed, but also to find ways to set up a party to deny. In fact, such as hemorrhagic fever and other than "SARS" more powerful disease, the national seventh five-year project - epidemic hemorrhagic fever, by the Nanjing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Zhou Zhongying research group treatment, Chinese medicine group's mortality rate is 1.11%, the mortality rate of Western medicine group is 5.08%.

Liu Lihong (M.D., Nanjing College of Traditional Chinese Medicine; professor, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Guangxi College of Traditional Chinese Medicine):

The fact that traditional Chinese medicine has fallen to such a state cannot help but be suspicious. I remember when I first graduated, in a Chinese hospital clinical, this Chinese hospital has a clear rule, fever patients with Chinese medicine, if the fever does not go down within three days, it must be on Western medicine. Why did the Chinese medicine hospital not stipulate that if the fever did not subside within three days with western medicine, the patient must be treated with Chinese medicine? Is the real Chinese medicine is what we see now?

In the past 10 years, one of the most frequently asked questions in the Chinese medicine community is why clinical efficacy is not possible. The theory of Chinese medicine has been formed for more than 2000 years, is it possible that the theory is backward, so it can not provide effective guidance for the clinic? So some people have raised the issue that the theory of Chinese medicine is lagging behind clinical practice. What I want to ask is: Have you really understood the theories of Chinese medicine? If we wrongly attribute the cause to the backwardness of theories, then we will form a real retrogression and backwardness. The problem is not in the theory, but in our understanding.

In Western medicine, there is a huge technological intermediary between theory and application, and the whole of modern science, including physics, chemistry, and biology, serves this intermediary, which makes the application of medical theory very convenient. In Chinese medicine, there is no such intermediary, and it is entirely up to the doctors themselves to grasp it. In the face of modern science, the elite can be reproduced. Chinese medicine does not have this convenience, the theory is good, if you can not grasp or zero. The backwardness of Chinese medicine is backward in this link. The status quo of Chinese medicine is in our own comprehension of the theory and application skills. This theory not only applies to the past, but also can solve the problems of the 21st century, SARS is an example.

The Nei Jing divides doctors into upper and lower workers, and Zhang Zhongjing said, "The upper worker does not treat the disease, but treats the disease before it occurs. And now most people's understanding of Chinese medicine, are from the level of the already sick to recognize; we use the modern Chinese medicine education path, but only a way to train the lower workers.

You forward: Indeed, due to the progress of natural science, in Western medicine, a variety of advanced science and technology is applied very quickly, so the diagnosis of Western medicine is very rapid technological progress, but the progress of its treatment than the diagnosis is much slower. A big reason for this is the slow discovery of drugs. The invention of drugs in western medicine is usually to discover the lack of muscle or more than a certain substance, and then chemically synthesize the approximation to make up for it, first do experiments on the animal body, and then try it out on the human body, and then improve it after a problem arises, or reduce its side effects, or stop using it.

Chinese medicine began with experiments based on the human body, with thousands of years of experimental basis. And the development of Western medicine does not have a long history, especially the history of drug therapy is only 200 years, in this sense we say that Chinese medicine is safe and effective. It does not mean that Chinese medicine has no side effects, but Chinese medicine has recognized the toxicity of drugs for a long time, and reduced the damage of toxicity to the human body through the compounding and concocting process of different drugs. From time to time, foreign countries have banned the use of Chinese medicine based on the fact that one of the drugs in the compounded medicine is a toxic substance, because Western medicine does not have the concept of compounding medicines at all.

Deng Tietao: The problem now is that the domestic authorities are also using Western medicine to manage Chinese medicine. Very good medicine in the drug inspection department but can not pass, for example, cattle Huang An Gong Pill, let the coma for three months Phoenix TV reporter Liu Hai Ruo woke up, but because it contains heavy metals, but now can not be approved for production.

Foreign experiments from animals to humans have taken a long time, but we have to go backwards, the original has been thousands of years of clinical practice in human beings, but now actually does not work, we have to go back and let the "mouse nod (mouse experiments)" to pass.

In the early years of our country engaged in the drug trial of many people are still very experienced old Chinese medicine, when they go to old age, gradually out of the stage of history, the new generation of drug trial personnel are mostly educated in Western medicine. Separated from the theory and experience of Chinese medicine to manage Chinese medicine, I am afraid that in the future the permitted use of Chinese medicine will become less and less.

Why people have no confidence in Chinese medicine is because many people believe that Chinese medicine must be revamped in order to modernize. What is needed now is a combination of clinical efficacy and new technology to modernize Chinese medicine, and there is a need for a lot of "hard-core Chinese doctors", that is, doctors who have a strong theoretical foundation in Chinese medicine, are clinically sound and can treat difficult diseases. Chinese medicine in a prosperous scene behind the ambush of the successor lack of people and lack of skills of the crisis of the demise!

Liu Lihong: Now there are a few students who can go to Peking University and Tsinghua University will apply for the College of Traditional Chinese Medicine? I see no. "Nay to the refined and subtle way, passed on to the lower and shallow people, its not abolished, for has been fortunate."

The so-called modern TCM education is actually an imitation of Western medicine. The subdisciplines are becoming more and more detailed, and many students are being trained, but what is the quality of the teaching? Over the years there have been senior students who asked me to give lectures before their internships, and the topic was "How to learn Chinese medicine". Why? Because after 4 years of study it is still not clear what to use to deal with the internship.

We advocate scientific research and modern education in Chinese medicine, which is completely filtering Chinese medicine with the sieve of modern science, and what is filtered out is the essence of Chinese medicine. The reason for the current problems in Chinese medicine lies in the problems in education and inheritance. In the modern education model, there are only instrumental teachers but no masters. In order to learn Chinese medicine well, there must be a "teacher". This discipline does not have the permeability of modern science, especially in the application of technology is not realized through the intermediary of technology, but must rely on people to use their efforts. Therefore, in the education process really need to teach by example.

As for experimentation, in the Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine, we don't see the Yellow Emperor asking Qibo, "How did you discover your theory of yin and yang? Was it discovered through experiments with mice? It is true that Chinese medicine does not have external experiments in the modern sense of using things outside the human body, but there are subtle and profound internal experiments in traditional culture. It is the combination of internal experiments and rational thinking that builds the theory of Chinese medicine. Can you think about meridians and acupoints just by thinking about them?

Nowadays, there is a terrible strange phenomenon in Chinese medicine, that is, the education of Chinese medicine classics is gradually weakening. Most Chinese medicine colleges and universities have changed the classics into an elective course. A basis for supporting the elective classics is to conduct public opinion surveys, many people think that the classics are not very meaningful, hit "x". The fact that you think the classics are of little significance precisely means that you have not learned anything from the classics. Only allow Chinese medicine to engage in modernization, not allow Chinese medicine to engage in traditionalization, I see this Chinese medicine will soon be finished.

You forward: For the modernization of Chinese medicine, different people may have different attitudes.

Pharmaceutical companies want to develop more tablets and other easy-to-take medicines in order to make them easier to manufacture and sell, and tend to simplify their formulas; research institutes may want to clarify the pharmacology of Chinese medicine as soon as possible, and to explain the efficacy of Chinese medicine using the scientific standards of Western medicine; and many Chinese medicine hospitals are willing to equip themselves with more modern scientific and technological instruments and apparatus, hoping that they will be able to treat all diseases and perform all surgeries.

These 3 aspects are all part of the modernization of TCM, but they are not the core part of TCM modernization. Modernization of TCM should meet people's modern needs while retaining the essence of TCM (identification and treatment). Improving the repeatability, measurability and convenience of treatment should also be the goal of TCM modernization.

Deng Tietao: The way out for Chinese hospitals lies in the availability of high-level Chinese medicine talents. Cultivate real Chinese medicine talents is the most urgent task, turn is no way out. Turn the country's Chinese hospitals into second-rate Western hospitals, what help to China's health to the world?

There were 400,000 to 500,000 TCM practitioners in China before the liberation, and today that number has not increased, while the number of Western doctors has increased from less than 30,000 to more than 5 million today. In terms of universities, how many Western medical universities are there? And how many Chinese medicine practitioners are there? Taking Guangdong as an example, there is now only one university of Chinese medicine, and the others are all universities of Western medicine. There used to be actual master and apprentice classes, but now that relationship is instead unrecognized, and there is simply no longer such a master and apprentice education system, and one of the most valuable Chinese medicine legacies has been lost.

Health care costs in the United States reached $103.51 billion in 1996, or more than 14 percent of the gross domestic product. Can such a Western model of health care be afforded by the size of China's population? If China wants to solve the problem of everyone's right to health care, I think it must vigorously develop the cause of Chinese medicine. -