Ok, so there are 11. Deal with it! ;-)

#1: It's All Connected (Holistic Medicine)

If you're interested in Alternative Medicine, you probably have heard this phrase over and over again. What is holistic medicine? Holistic health? What is a holistic veterinarian? Well, I'm not going to speak for everyone... What I can tell you is how Chinese Medicine is a holistic mind body medicine, and by that I mean: it is all connected.

Chinese medicine connects you with your environment. It integrates natural metaphors into its system of diagnosis. Cold weather can cause a cold condition (for example, a "cold" common cold where mucus is clear and chills are stronger than fever), and hot weather can cause a hot condition (e.g. a "hot" common cold with sore throat, or a worsening of inflammatory (hot) rheumatoid arthritis).

Chinese medicine connects your mind and body. Or maybe it's better to say: Chinese medicine never disconnected mind and body. After centuries of mind body dualism, western medicine (biomedicine) has only recently begun to bring mind and body back together, most notably in an interesting new science called psychoneuroimmunology. Chinese medicine diagnoses according to patterns (groups of symptoms) and every pattern has implied states of mind and emotion. There are also Chinese constitutional types with their own particular mental and emotional tendencies. These are two pivot points for Traditional Chinese Medicine's holistic mind body approach.

This is reason I got into Chinese Medicine. A life-changing self-examination led to realization that hidden parts of my psyche had controlled my thoughts, emotions, and decisions for most of my life. Then I saw that CM also had a way of relating body, mind, and emotion. I thought, "Wow, maybe I can find out more of hidden things that are keeping me from maximum health, happiness, and effectiveness, and then help people too!"

When you come to see an Chinese Medicine Doctor as a patient, we listen to your symptoms, ask questions, look at your tongue (it's only muscle we can see and it provides us with clues about state of your internal organs), take your pulse (not just your heartrate, but 6 positions on each hand that correspond to state of 12 major organs), listen to sound of your voice, how fast you talk, look at tint of your skin, quality of your nails, and even note your smell! It's said that superior physician can diagnose you after just watching you walk into his office. Indeed, some practitioners only have to ask 4 or 5 questions to nail down your pattern and then can predict remarkable things about your health and emotions. The rest of us are still learning; that's why they call it a practice!

Diagnosis is connected to treatment. Once we have a good diagnosis, we know best food, exercise, lifestyle, herbal formulas, and acupuncture points for you. Biomedicine often has a name for your disease but no treatment; Chinese Medicine can take a look from another angle and find treatments based on your pattern or meridian diagnosis. For every disease, there is a treatment.

#2 - Chinese Medicine is Mysterious.

There are many systems and theories by which we practice CM (Chinese Medicine). They often overlap... 10 practitioners might diagnose same patient differently. Perhaps 6 of them are just plain wrong- but 3 or 4 of them could help. There's more than one answer? That challenges western mind. This doesn't mean there's more than one reality- just more than one perspective on it.

Real people are complex- they could have a pain, emotional problems, and a digestive complaint at same time. Sometimes, treating one aspect cures another one. Other times, all must be taken into account for there to be any permanent results. Yet totality of a human being is always a mystery.

Symbolic Medicine

Chinese Medicine comes from a culture whose language is written in symbols... The Chinese language has a new symbol for every word, instead of building words from phonetic building blocks as English does. Because of this, ideas are more symbolic and fluid. There is a logic to it, but sometimes borders are a bit more blurred than in Western medicine.

The Mystery of How

How and why does Chinese Medicine work? We can describe in Chinese Medical terms how acupuncture and herbs work, but research is still clarifying how it works in biomedical terms (for a summary of what we do know, click here).

These are two different ways of decribing same reality. Two angles on same object. Think about binoculars... two slightly different vantage points yield a three-dimensional view. Each medicine is incomplete and has strengths and weaknesses. Together they help us see truth more clearly. Just as when our eyes merge two binocular images into one, as western and eastern medicine become more and more integrated, we are seeing more and more of three-dimensional picture of human health.

#3 - Chinese Medicine works - It's Practical

The theories (however intriguing or mysterious) lead to treatments that usually work. Healing occurs to amazement of MD's and sometimes even to new practitioner!

As an intern, even before graduating from schoo, I:

Chinese Medicine students learn about how every aspect of our lives (from bowel movements to emotions) relate to one another. We learn to relate to every kind of person.

Patients Can Push Your Buttons

Patients sometimes push our buttons, and this give us opportunity to interact with ourselves. This is not always easy. We don't always like what we find! But if you commit to growth through interaction, helping, and self-examination, you can deactivate your buttons, grow past your limits, and increase your usefulness to others.

More specifically:

* Some students may realize they came to medicine for a selfish reason and decide to put helping others first. * Some students find they are people-pleasers and have to learn how to set boundaries and be more assertive (not aggressive or passive-aggressive!). * Others are more confrontational and aggressive by nature and need to learn compassion and patience. * Some are analytical and live in their heads - they need to learn to focus on their hearts, gaining rapport and loving their patients.

Letting Go of Bad Habits

Your bad habits are called into question. At one point in my training, I went back to smoking cigarettes. It was a guilt-laden 6 weeks! It seemed hypocritical to want to be a healer while destroying my health. And I felt like I had to hide it. I quit to be a better example to my patients, and not to have to hide anything.

I also had to quit coffee. I knew from chinese medicine that it wasn't helping me with my impatience and irritability. It was worsening my liver qi stagnation! I had to give it up and take herbs instead. I had to practice what I preach.

When you know something is bad, it seems like fun to do it anyway (it gives you illusion of power and control). But eventually you give in to wisdom, do what is right, and get to feel even better. Then you can help others with same struggle.

Your Victory can lead to their Victory

Occasionally, your own personal growth and commitment to self-examination helps your patients directly. At one point, I saw a woman with fears of abandonment. I had just discovered and confronted my own similar fears 6 months before. She was able to feel understood and heard and I was able to offer her solutions, strength, and hope.

In this way, we are trailblazers- pioneers in growth. If we remain shallow, so will our healing interactions. If we grow deeper, we can lead people to greater healing.

#7 It Benefits YOU Too!

As was just explained, by helping others you get to grow too.

Save on Health Care Costs

By giving yourself know-how and resources to keep yourself, your friends, and your family well, you can save money. One acupuncturist said on an email list that it saved her family tens of thousands of dollars in medical costs. It can be practiced inexpensively - for many years it treated millions of poor peasants in China who had no access to western medicine. Chinese Medicine may be a large part of solution to our healthcare crisis.

Professional Courtesy

Some acupuncturists trade treatments with one another to stay in good health. I've received hundreds of treatments from fellow students, practitioners, and my wife! It's helped me with anger, irritability, migraines, light sensitivity, fear, over-thinking, colds and flus, and cold sores, among other things.

#8 It's Traditional and Ancient

It's natural for us to look for reassurance, especially in dealing with our health. Biomedicine reassures by requiring studies of treatments for safety. Chinese medicine has been tested for safety and efficacy (especially acupuncture), and it has thousands of years of experience behind it to show what happens to people it treats. It is inarguably a positive influence in our world. Biomedicine, on other hand, is only 50 years old, and full scope of side effect phenomenon (short and long-term) has yet to be grasped.

Not every chinese remedy has been through full rigors of Randomized Controlled Trial (biomedicine's gold-standard), but neither have all of standard biomedical treatments. The millions of hours and patient visits through hundreds of years establish traditional chinese treatments as safe and effective. More and more studies are being done to confirm them and understand how they work in biomedical terms. I have written extensively on acupuncture safety and how it works here.

#9 Its Theories have Broad Implications

Since it integrates many different disciplines and realms, CM concepts could be used to reorganize and give insight to psychology and psychiatry, pharmaceutical medicine, and sociology. These insights could guide and suggest future research in all fields.