I am packing for nearly four months away -- three weeks of pure relaxation in Hong Kong and three months in Harbin, in northern China, for intensive acupuncture training at the Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine. Passport, tick. Visa, tick. Currency, tick. Chinese Phrases for Dummies, double tick.
My wonderful, supportive husband is so excited for me to have this opportunity to see Chinese medicine practised in a Chinese setting. Not just for a week or two, but to be completely immersed in a hospital setting for a few months. I've known about this trip for the past three years since starting acupuncture studies, but now that it's finally time, I really should stop and ask myself, what exactly am I expecting from this whole China adventure?
I expect to learn how Chinese medicine works as primary medicine. In our teaching clinic in South Bank, more often than not we see chronic conditions like long-standing joint and back pains, auto-immune diseases, insomnia and depression - conditions that are not very well treated by Western medicine. Patients don't come to us in the first instance; they tend to come to Chinese medicine after they've tried everything else.
I expect to learn techniques that are not taught in the West, such as scalp acupuncture for stroke and other neurological conditions. Last year we had a short lecture on acupuncture for stroke rehabilitation, and it whet my appetite for more.
I hope, rather than expect, to see how acupuncture is integrated with cancer care as this is my personal area of interest.
But more than anything, I expect to meet people who couldn't come from a more different walk of life, but with whom I share a love of Chinese medicine and a passion for helping patients regain their health. All I have to do is revise and speak this very difficult tonal language that is Mandarin. It is not for the tone-deaf!
My wonderful, supportive husband is so excited for me to have this opportunity to see Chinese medicine practised in a Chinese setting. Not just for a week or two, but to be completely immersed in a hospital setting for a few months. I've known about this trip for the past three years since starting acupuncture studies, but now that it's finally time, I really should stop and ask myself, what exactly am I expecting from this whole China adventure?
I expect to learn how Chinese medicine works as primary medicine. In our teaching clinic in South Bank, more often than not we see chronic conditions like long-standing joint and back pains, auto-immune diseases, insomnia and depression - conditions that are not very well treated by Western medicine. Patients don't come to us in the first instance; they tend to come to Chinese medicine after they've tried everything else.
I expect to learn techniques that are not taught in the West, such as scalp acupuncture for stroke and other neurological conditions. Last year we had a short lecture on acupuncture for stroke rehabilitation, and it whet my appetite for more.
I hope, rather than expect, to see how acupuncture is integrated with cancer care as this is my personal area of interest.
But more than anything, I expect to meet people who couldn't come from a more different walk of life, but with whom I share a love of Chinese medicine and a passion for helping patients regain their health. All I have to do is revise and speak this very difficult tonal language that is Mandarin. It is not for the tone-deaf!
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