The man who went to China and didn't feel anything...

July 29, 2003

I have an MD friend who was going to take Eisenberg's Harvard course for MDs on TCM. Until she saw the notes and found that he had one page on herbal medicine, and the only herbs listed were ones that had been "thoroughly examined" in light of WM. Presumable this excluded Chinese research as shoddy.

Eisenberg strikes me as a guy who wanted to make a niche for himself in western medicine without really understanding eastern medicine. I've had dealings with several MDs, both in school as fellow students, and out. Some clearly want to be the next Andrew Weil, and get recognition and grants and funding. Others are just folks who want to be able to help people effectively.

What really irks me about Eisenberg is that he spins himself as someone who actually knows all about this stuff. I'm not saying that somebody who can't feel qi shouldn't do acupuncture etc., but what does he think about what he's doing if he doesn't feel this stuff. The rest of that interview was pretty hilarious. He kept showing Moyers these people he studied with and telling him about the training, and Moyers would ask "and you actually did that?" and Eisenberg would say "well... no..."

On the good side, Kiiko Matsumoto and David Euler are running some training for Harvard MDs now which is somewhat more thorough (no herbs, but nice clinically effective acupuncture based on traditional Japanese and Manaka). It isn't based in TCM so much, but it works well and seems fairly modular, so I don't think there's going to be a pile of MDs who think it doesn't work because they tried it and it didn't work. My main concern with MD training is that they will think they are learning magic secret #1 through 5 and that this will enable them to harpoon people to wellness after their first weekend. When it doesn't work, they get all pissy and say acupuncture couldn't treat its way out of a wet paper autoclave bag. Kiiko's style may be just right, because she teaches it in a trick by trick format, and it's only when you step along way back and get some other information that it really hangs together as a system, but by that time you're hooked.

Par

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TashiDelay

Chinese Medicine

Monday, July 28, 2003 2:55 PM

Re: Traditional (TCM) Digest Number 99

In a message dated 7/27/03 9:42:07 PM, herbbabe writes:<< I remember being floored when, in the Bill Moyer's series,in which he featured David Eisenberg, from Harvard, who said he could notfeel qi. That it was mysterious to him. Even now, I wonder, how could thisbe? The ease of it- the sensory rightness of a point.Am I so deeply sequestered in my world of qi that I cannot imagine that thisis exclusive in some way?Cara>>I'm with you Cara. It seems/feels so obvious!robbeeFor practitioners, students and those interested in Traditional (TCM) ranging from acupuncture, herbal medicine, tuina and nutrition.Membership rules require that you adhere to NO commercial postings, NO religious postings and NO spam.Web site homepage: Chinese Medicine/