"Chinese medicine gaining respectability in the West"

A few things came up for me in reading this article. First, the stories of the patients who turned to TCM when Western medicine couldn't help them resonated with me. I have the same background; I fell through the cracks in the Western healthcare system onto TCM's doorstep, and in a life-threatening state. TCM helped me reclaim my life from severe, chronic health issues and gave me my purpose: to pass its healing powers onto others. Every time I hear a story of someone finding relief in the arms of TCM when nothing else worked is always a magical moment for me. I love TCM so much!

Second, the growing number of Western medical institutions that are now offering TCM modalities gives me hope for a full integration of East and West medical traditions someday. Two of the Western hospitals that were discussed are here in the Bay Area. My godfather works for Kaiser in SF and he says that they have several acupuncturists on staff. I think that the modern research on TCM coming out of Harvard and other prestigious institutions is the most important contribution to TCM growing in this country. I plan to do research studies and thus help to ground the field of TCM into the cold, hard facts that Western society appreciates.

Third, I was angered by the uneducated comments made by the Stanford professor of the "voodoo," placebo nature of TCM. It's frustrating that on top of the overwhelming complexity of TCM and having to learn so much Western medicine that we have to deal with the cynicism, doubts, and attacks from conventional doctors. But as long as we continue to do clinical studies on the efficacy of TCM and give the doctors cold, hard facts, I believe we will receive more and more of their support and cooperation in delivering integrative medicine.