Guest guest Posted December 28, 2003 Report Share Posted December 28, 2003 Dear Ken, I would be honored to teach in the states ! Preferably, I would love to combine teaching with research. Whats on offer Ken ? Regards, Rey Tiquia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 28, 2003 Report Share Posted December 28, 2003 Rey, Get in touch with me off the list when you have a few moments and I'll bring you up to speed. Ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 28, 2003 Report Share Posted December 28, 2003 Hi All, & Ken & Attilio Ken wrote: > I'm working on a project that includes development of a case > history format. I'd be very grateful for any input that any of you > might have to make as to criteria for designing such a format. My > aim is to see a standard form in widespread use that will allow us > to gather and summarize outcomes. And we need some sort of > standard format for reporting data in order to do this. So, any > thoughts on this topic are much appreciated. Ken Great idea and badly needed. Though I have no template, there are probably several " out there " . IMO, the most useful template should contain at least the following data fields: 1. Client contact details: Name, address, phone, fax, email 2. Other personal (fixed) client data: gender, age, birthdate and place of birth, previous dwelling places, occupation, reproductive history, sexual preference(s) (hetero-, bi- or homo- sexual) .. 2a. Date of presentation and weather/climatic factors in the previous few weeks. 2b. " In what way do YOU think that I can help you? " 3. Presenting S & Ss 4. Past S & Ss 5. Exaggerating factors 6. Ameliorating factors 7. Constitutional / emotional data 8. Likes and dislikes (in food, tastes, colours, seasons, etc) 9. Tests, conventional Dxs, therapies / medications used/being used up to presentation 10. Discussion of past and present stresses, worries, traumas. 11. Nature of dreams, especially recurrent dreams. 12. Client's own ideas about the cause(s) & trigger(s) of the current and past problems. 13. " In what way do YOU think that YOU can help yourself? " 14. System-specific (prompt-checklist) queries re all major organ- systems: nervous, resp, cardiovascular, digestive, reproductive/genital, urinary, blood, hormonal, musculoskeletal, skin, teeth, hair, nails, etc, overlapping with the Twelve Jing/Zangfu (LU, LI, ST, SP, HT, SI, BL, KI, PC, TH, GB, LV), Eight Mai (Extraordinary Vessels), etc 14. Findings on the Four Examinations [Looking, Listening, Palpation/Pulses, Smelling], etc. I throw these thoughts out as skeletons to be discussed and built upon, as I have not time to flesh them in just now. If Ken and others can synthesise a systematic and thorough template from such and other sources, it would be most useful as a " Front-End " menu from which to gather a very complete history. That template could be stored as a digital form to record the relevant aspects of the case. When completed and verified, those data could be input into databases that have the key S & Ss for the TCM Syndromes to reach a short-list of the most likely Syndrome(s). In turn, these could be input to databases with extensive details of individual herbs & formulas to suggest the " most perfect match " for the presented case. PS: I had scribbled this before I saw more details from Attilio's suggestions Best regards, Email: < WORK : Teagasc Research Management, Sandymount Ave., Dublin 4, Ireland Mobile: 353-; [in the Republic: 0] HOME : 1 Esker Lawns, Lucan, Dublin, Ireland Tel : 353-; [in the Republic: 0] WWW : http://homepage.eircom.net/~progers/searchap.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 28, 2003 Report Share Posted December 28, 2003 Dear Ken, In my group EPCEL (Education for Prostate Cancer Electronic Link) I encourage use of the following format when relating case histories. It is important for patients and their healers to be able to track objective and measurable indices of disease and of health. The PC (prostate cancer) history is then potentially a piece of scientific data that may eventually be incorporated into a study showing the relationship between PSA decline (decreasing disease) and androgen recovery (increasing health). Many (if not all men) diagnosed with prostate cancer have a low androgen level and this has been attributed to prostate cancer growth. The theory is not generally held in conventional medical circles but there is nevertheless strong evidence to support the argument from within the WM paradigm. Of course TCM treats the symptoms of prostatic disease as a deficiency state, and attempts to increase Ki Qi and Jing with preparations containing Yin Yang Hua for example, or preparations like Jin Kiu Shen Qi Wan. Further details on the WM approach available if you contact me directly; however for the purpose of this thread here is the format I like to use: The first line of your PC history should look like this (abbreviations defined below):- DoB | Date Dx | bPSA | Stage & Grade | Primary & secondary treatments Subsequent lines of your history should look like this: Date | PSA | Testosterone | Condition & comments: adjuvants, supplements and lifestyle changes [ The separator '|' (or any other unique symbol) is a place marker and used to enable loading into a spreadsheet so please keep it in the line even if data is missing. For example you may want to make a comment like this 02/01/2003 | | | Uploaded new Welcome Message to Epcel Note there is no PSA or Testosterone date but the | | | is still there !! ] Definitions: DoB - date of birth Date Dx - Date of diagnosis bPSA - first PSA reading Stage - Using the TNM system see http://www.prostateinfo.com/patient/treatment/tnm.asp Grade - Gleason numbers see http://www.prostateinfo.com/patient/tests/gleason.asp Primary - First and main treatment received (e.g. surgery, hormone block,) Secondary - Supporting treatment (e.g. salvage radiation, hormone block) Adjuvant - Support medication such as bisphosphonates and calcitriol, NAHT Supplements - Vitamins and herbals (e.g. ginko), TCM formulae Lifestyle - Changes in daily diet and exercise routines. Rx - Prescribe RT - Radiotherapy RP - Radical Prostatectomy surgery NAHT / NHT - neoadjuvant hormone therapy Chinese Medicine , " kenrose2008 " <kenrose2008> wrote: > All, > > I'm working on a project that includes > development of a case history format. I'd > be very grateful for any input that any > of you might have to make as to criteria > for designing such a format. > > My aim is to see a standard form in widespread > use that will allow us to gather and > summarize outcomes. And we need some sort > of standard format for reporting data > in order to do this. > > So, any thoughts on this topic are > much appreciated. > > Ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 28, 2003 Report Share Posted December 28, 2003 Chinese Medicine , " sammy " wrote: Of course TCM treats the symptoms of prostatic disease as a deficiency state, and attempts to increase Ki Qi and Jing with preparations containing Yin Yang Hua for example, or preparations like Jin Kiu Shen Qi Wan. >>> Sammy: While some symptoms of prostatic cancer are due to deficiency (xu), the cancerous growth itself is strongly excessive or replete (shi). Do you ever address it, or leave that aspect to WM? Jim Ramholz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 28, 2003 Report Share Posted December 28, 2003 Dear Jim, Thank you for making your point. In answer to your question: Although it is not generally known there is a model of prostate cancer which asserts that cancerous growth is due to a deficiency of androgen (testosterone and DHT to be precise). In brief, prostate cancer (PC) responds in a biphasic fashion to androgen. The term 'biphasic' could be represented graphically by a bell-sheaped (inverted-U) curve: A small amount of androgen will trigger PC, whereas a larger amount will cause the PC to undergo apoptosis. Hence within the deficiency condition there is something really excessive going on. Since most basic science courses teach only linear responses in biological systems it is difficult for many people (including most western doctors and scientists) to understand that " less means 'more' and more means 'less' " . However I am sure most people reading this on the TCM list will have no difficulty ;-) Having said that there may be differences in interpreting at what stage more is less and so on. That is an area I'd dearly love to investigate (with your help dare I add) and that indeed is why I have a group trying to deal with this novel view of PC - novel from the point of view of most men diagnosed with the disease in the West. So far I have managed to reach a handful of men who are managing to maintain a relatively high androgen level and keep their disease in remission - to the astonishment of most doctors! If you go to my home page you will see a 50 year old report detailing how daily testosterone injections helped terminal cases of PC recover when all else had failed. In those days they really did castrate PC patients and remove their hypothalamus. Anyhow, I'd like to see how we can translate the rather crude manouvre of testosterone injection into a TCM procedure - one which supports the natural production of androgens (and Jing generally). Here is my home page (I am sure Atti will approve as he monitors EPCEL already) :- epcel/ Hope that interests some of you and thanks for bringing up your point Jim. BTW If you actually to the group you'll be automatically sent a bunch of info on the ideas I have been trying to express. I am sure there is a 'middle way' here between TCM and WM & I'd like to be part of bringing out (learning more about) that knowledge. Cheers, Sammy. writing from home James Ramholz [jramholz] 28 December 2003 21:55 Chinese Medicine Re: Case histories Chinese Medicine , " sammy " wrote: Of course TCM treats the symptoms of prostatic disease as a deficiency state, and attempts to increase Ki Qi and Jing with preparations containing Yin Yang Hua for example, or preparations like Jin Kiu Shen Qi Wan. >>> Sammy: While some symptoms of prostatic cancer are due to deficiency (xu), the cancerous growth itself is strongly excessive or replete (shi). Do you ever address it, or leave that aspect to WM? Jim Ramholz Membership requires that you do not post any commerical, swear, religious, spam messages,flame another member or swear. To change your email settings, i.e. individually, daily digest or none, visit the groups’ homepage: Chinese Medicine/ click ‘edit my membership' on the right hand side and adjust accordingly. To send an email to <Chinese Medicine- > from the email account you joined with. You will be removed automatically but will still recieve messages for a few days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 29, 2003 Report Share Posted December 29, 2003 Sammy, and All, I found your post thought provoking. I hope my remarks below are helpful. At the end you said, I am sure there is > a 'middle way' here between TCM and WM & I'd like to be part of bringing out > (learning more about) that knowledge. If you take a look at that post I put up a few hours ago with the quote from the Ames/Hall Dao De Jing, you can follow what I'm about to say as an example of precisely the kind of onerous implications of the way terms are rendered in Chinese medicine and the impact of the equivocation, here more linguistic than cultural. You have taken a Chinese term, xu1, which is commonly and very poorly rendered into English as " deficiency " and equated it with a deficiency of a particular substance in the body, as it is identified by Western medical science. Jim's comment, I believe, got you going in this very questionable direction, as it implies that there is some constant theoretical value to cancer that can be linked to the two terms xu1 and shi2, which by the way simply do not mean deficiency and excess. These are two very clear examples of the way in which the non-familiar is zapped into familiarity by the translator's pen. Students of Chinese medicine should be made to understand how non-familiar these two terms are as a prerequisite to gaining any understanding of what they mean. And the crime of forcing non-equivalent equivalencies such as deficient and excess down students' throats only exacerbates the whole sad situations. Xu1 and shi2 have no constant abstract theoretical value. They are diagnostic terms in Chinese medicine that relate to individual situations. Everyone has xu1 and shi2. The taiji classics contain some deep insights into xu1 and shi2 including one passage that reads: each place in the body has the same xu1 and shi2. So it is not meaningful to try and associate constant values of xu1 and shi2 to supposedly correlative markers used to identify organic activity according to Western medical assay. In patient X, who may well be characterized by xu1 patterns, marker Y may indicate a deficiency of some particular substance of activity. Yet patient Z, who may well be characterized by shi2 patterns may also show this same pattern of deficiency according to the identical marker in the Western clinical assessment. There are just a handful of possibilities given these few variables. Any might obtain from diagnosis according to the two approaches of Western and Chinese medicine, and this doesn't begin to take into account the variety of interprative approaches one might encounter from one practitioner of Chinese medicine to another. So what is being correlated? Confusion, unfortunately. I wholeheartedly agree with and endorse the purpose you state above. And I think more than ever that if we aim as a group to move forward out of the confusions that we have thus far created and sustained, one early, in fact immediate step that we need to take is to recognize the actual condition of things. While debate continues to rage about the meanings of the most basic terms, and where people are admitted to this debate and granted widespread credence who more or less lack the qualifications to take part, it will likely remain difficult for this awareness to spread throughout the community. People will continue to be confused and misled by what they will see as noise and fury signifying nothing. But everyone can perform a kind of self-test to determine where you are as an individual when it comes to this sort of confusion. Ask yourself what each of the terms listed below means, and if you have any questions, just recognize that you don't know. According to the Dao De Jing, that is the way to go about knowing. And if you want to know Chinese medicine, this approach to knowledge was, if not well known at least readily available to be known by the authors of the texts on which Chinese medicine at least claims to be based. It's not a bad idea, in other words, to know what knowledge meant to the ancient Chinese doctors and scholars who recorded the knowledge that you think you are using in your clinic today. In the past when I've forwarded this kind of appeal, a certain percentage of folks get bent out of shape over who the heck I think I am and how can I say things like this? But that really isn't where it's at. Just ask yourself, What is: qi yin yang wu xing xu shi jing luo zang fu And that's enough. If you know what those terms mean, great. If you don't, that's great, too. But listen carefully to your answers. Explain what these things mean to people who have never heard of them, and then see how clearly you have let someone else understand them. Well, there you go provoking my thoughts again, Sammy. Thanks, Ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 29, 2003 Report Share Posted December 29, 2003 Hi Rey, Great stuff, as usual! Phil >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Rey wrote: I think this is a very good project, Ken, and I think that Atillo started with a very good format . I have looked into this issue of case history writing in TCM when I was doing my Masters of Science in l995 (when I was enrolled in the subject 'Diseases and Society') and wrote a paper entitled " Remaking Traditional Chinese medicine As contemporary Australian Medical Practice " One of the my motives in writing the paper was the incrasing phenomenon of scientization of TCM practice including the writing of it's clinical case histories which is referred to in Chinese as 'Yi An' I am presenting below an expanded version of the Yi An as written in my paper. THE MEDICAL CASE RECORDS A TECHNOLOGY THROUGH WHICH EVALUATION PROCEEDS " The medical case records is the basis upon which the TCM practitoner makes his diagnosis and tratment of the patient. It is a record of convergence between TCM theory and practice. It is a record of TCM practice. It is a record of the process of " differentiating clinical patterns and tailoring treatment. " (bian zheng lun zhi). It is also the concrete manifestation of " choosing individual remedies for the formulae on the basis of the established therapuetic method and principle (li fa fang yao). " ( A General Introduction to the schematization and use of the Medical Case Records " Journal of TCM , I have to get the complete name of the journal, volume and date of issue. " I GENERAL INFORMATION (The patient's name, sex, age, place of birth, place of origin (ji guan); residential address; date of consultation. In case of infants or minors, include the names and address of parents or guardian. II Inquiry Wen Zhen 1. MAIN COMPLAINT : The main symptom or sign including location , nature , extent and time they appear. They must be summative using one or two words to accurately describe them . EXAMPLE : " Recurrent colicky upper abdominal pain, accompanied by vomitting for three times. " 2. HISTORY OR CURRENT CONDITION : This refers to the whole historical developmental process of current condition. This can include: time of onset of codition; what brought it about; where the symptoms occurred; nature and severity of symptom; changes in symptomss; accompanying conditions; treatment undergone and present state of illness. 3. CURRENT SYMPTOM This aspect requires detailed record including the " Ten Questions " a. CHILLS AND FEVERS : Averssion to cold; aversion to wind' fever, fever in afternoon; high fever; slight fever; severe fever at night; fever at night and feeling of coldness during the daytime. b. SWEAT Spontaneous sweating; nightsweats; severe sweating; localized sweating. c. DIZZINESS severity; accompanying symptoms. d. PAIN location; time; nature (descriptive) e. CHEST chest congestion; chest pain; palpitations f. ABDOMEN abdominal pain;(location , nature, alleviated by cold or heat; alleviated by pressure or not); abdominal distention (extent); abdominal lump (size, location, texture, tenderness). g. APPETITE: Too much appetite and always hungry (xiao gu sheng ji); hungry but no appetite to eat; no appetite to eat; inability to take in food; absence of ability to taste food; acid taste in mouth; sweet taste in the mouth; salty taste in the mouth. h. FAECES AND URINE constipated. diarrhoeia, abnormal sensation when defecating; Urine ( quantity, frequency, urgency in urinating; interrupted urination ; uirination at night; incontinence . i. SLEEP insomnia, sleepiness j. MENSTRUATION, VAGINAL DISCHARGE, PREGNANCY AND MOTHERHOOD 1) age at initial period----duration of period---menopausal age 2)Menses colour; quantity (nummer of tampons used) texture 3) Vaginal Discharge (Dai) colour, quantity, texture and smell 4)Pregnancy: number of pregnancies, number of childbirths. 5)Child: normal period of gestation; premature; difficult labour; history of infectious diseases; smallpox; measles, immunizatoion Individual characteristics: prome to convulsions, diarrhoeia; asthma History of previous illnesses: treatment and prognosis III. Inspection (Wang Zhen) A. WHOLE BODY INSPECTION 1. Spirit (Shen) normal, tired, dispirited, overactive, irritable 2. Consciousness: Clear, blurry, sleepu, uncounsious 3. Demeanor: natural and normal, suffering, frightened, worried, withdrawn , dull or happy 4. Facial Colour: flushed, ruddy, red on both cheeks; bluish; purpple 5. Body Consittution: overweight ; thin 6. Decorum : moves naturally, oncomfortable with body movements; paralyzed; half-body paralisis; shaking or tremors B. REGIONAL INSPECTION head; face, eyes, nose, ears, mouth, lips, throat, neck. chest and abdomen, back and lower back, upper extremeties, lower extremeties, skin, front yin (genitalia), back yin (anal opening) C. INSPECTING SECREATIONS saliva, vomit, faeces, urine, child index finger, D. INSPECTING THE TONGUE 1. Colour : pink, red, purple, bluish 2. Appearance: Flabby, thin, fissures, teethmarks 3 Texture: stiff, soft, shaking, veers to one side; contracted, wagging IV Listening and Smelling (Wen Zhen) A. LISTENING TO THE SOUND 1. Voice: high pitch; low pitch; hoarse; voieless; screaming; moaning 2. Talk : talks a lot; talks little; delirium; talks to oneself; murmuring in unconcious state 3. Breathing: wheeze; loud and hoarse; slight and faint breathing; inhaling more or exhaling less or vice-versa. 4. Cough: loud and big cough; hoarse cough; coughs like barking dog; chiken sounding cough. 5. Vomit: high pitch and low pitch 6. Hiccups: high pitch and faint B. FOUL SMELL 1. Mouth Qi acidic foul smell; fermented foul smell; very foul smell; foul spirit smell; foul smell similar to decaying fruit 2. Sweat Qi Urine smell 3. Secreations : (including pus, phleg, vaginal discharge, urine and faeces) 4. Sick Person Room Qi : corpse smell; bloody smell, urine smell; smell of decaying fruits; rotten smell V Palpations (Qie Zhen) A. Feeling the Pulse (mai zhen) 1. PULSE LOCATION A. Superficial with soggy (ru) lethery (ge) hollow (kong) and scattered (san) B. Deep : with hidden(fu); frail (ruo) confined (lao) C. Right Cun ---Guan--- Chi d. Left Cun---Guan--- Chi 2. PULSE RATE Slow (chi), moderate(huan), rapid(shuo), galloping (ji) 3. PULSE SHAPE Thready(xi), minute (wei), long (chang), short (duan), 4. PULSE STRENGTH empty (xu); full (shi) 5. PULSE MOMENTUM (mai shi) flooding (hong), taut (xuan); slippery (hua) moving (dong), choppy (se) 6. PULSE RHYTHM (Mai Lu) hurried (cu) knotted (jie) , intermittent (dai) PALPATION Qie 1. Skin:cool, hot, moist, dry. sweling, depressions 2. Hand and Foot: cold, hot, fever on palm. fever on back of hand , moist , dry 3. Chest 4. Abdomen: cool, hot, soft, hard, distended, lumps, tenderness 5. Acupuncture Points : knots, sensitivity, tenderness VI . Differentiation Clinical Patterns BIAN ZHENG A. Eight Principal Patterns B. Patterns of Acupunncute Channels: Taiyang; Shaoyang; Yangming; Taiyin; Shaoyin; Jueyin C. Patterns of Internal Organ Dishrnony Heart--liver--spleen--lung-- kidneys D. Patterns of Qi, Blood, Body Fluids Disharmonies Deficient--- Deficient----Deficient Qi Blood Body Fuids Excess Excess Excess E Eiological Patterns Exterior Afflications (Wai Gan) wind, cold, summerheat, damp, dryness, fore Interior Trauma (Nei Shang) Seven Emotions, others F. Patterns of Exterior Heat Afflictions 1. Patterns of Six Divisions 2. Patterns of Four Stages- Triple Burner (The above is a translation of a segment of Deng Tie Tao's book Zhong Yi Zhen Duan Xue TCM Diagnostics , People's Health Publishing House, (Beijing , l987) Warm Regards, Rey Tiquia Phd Candidate Dept. of History and Philosophy of Science The University of Melbourne Parkville Victoria Australia >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Best regards, Email: < WORK : Teagasc Research Management, Sandymount Ave., Dublin 4, Ireland Mobile: 353-; [in the Republic: 0] HOME : 1 Esker Lawns, Lucan, Dublin, Ireland Tel : 353-; [in the Republic: 0] WWW : http://homepage.eircom.net/~progers/searchap.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 29, 2003 Report Share Posted December 29, 2003 - Dear Phil, Thanks for the feedback . I still have to get back to you about the " injectables " which was interrupted by that 'hiccup' in the CHA involving Emmanuel Segmen. Warm regards, Rey Tiquia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 29, 2003 Report Share Posted December 29, 2003 Ken, You are provoking my thoughts too ! > In patient X, who may well be characterized .... I'd prefer discussion of particular cases to illustrate generalities. You can find them on EPCEL if you care to go there. At the moment the discussion on EPCEL is taking place solely in terms of the WM paradigm, with my 'cutting edge' stuff interposed in order to get guys away from the century old " castration is good for you " thinking. I don't mind admitting I am a 'learner' when it comes to TCM and would not presume to advise any of my EPCEL rs on TCM diagnosis, or how to go about treating themselves with TCM. They do nevertheless treat themselves with propriety formulae mostly, and I am eager to see how these formulae fit into individual patterns of disharmony. I am convinced there is a middle way between TCM and WM because there is one world, one reality, and the convergence of our modelling of our perceptions / experiences is an inevitability of sharing and communication. And > Just ask yourself, What is: qi yin yang wu xing xu shi jing luo zang fu Ken, I'd like someone to tell me how to just pronounce the words ;-) BTW, I took a look at Falun Gong last night on: http://www.falundafa.org/book/eng/dymf.htm and there were for the first time some easy to read explanations and pronunciations in the footnotes. I did however get a little worried about the 'supernormal' claims at the ende of chapter 2. I think this rather extreme interpretation of the Tao can be equivocated with the subjective relativism and 'anthropism' suggested by string theory: however, as Susskind himself admits this (equivocation) is an epiphenomenal quality of a physical real-world theory and not to be taken seriously. I am not too happy with that 'supernormal' aspect of Falun Gong for the same reason: namely that just theorising about something without a sound grounding in empirical testing can get you into an awful lot of trouble. Any thoughts on Falun Gong -- maybe we (anyone who responds) should start a separate thread if there is ? Back to dealing with prostate cancer in the real word for me. Cheers, Sammy. kenrose2008 [kenrose2008] 29 December 2003 01:10 Chinese Medicine Re: Case histories Sammy, and All, I found your post thought provoking. I hope my remarks below are helpful. At the end you said, I am sure there is > a 'middle way' here between TCM and WM & I'd like to be part of bringing out > (learning more about) that knowledge. If you take a look at that post I put up a few hours ago with the quote from the Ames/Hall Dao De Jing, you can follow what I'm about to say as an example of precisely the kind of onerous implications of the way terms are rendered in Chinese medicine and the impact of the equivocation, here more linguistic than cultural. You have taken a Chinese term, xu1, which is commonly and very poorly rendered into English as " deficiency " and equated it with a deficiency of a particular substance in the body, as it is identified by Western medical science. Jim's comment, I believe, got you going in this very questionable direction, as it implies that there is some constant theoretical value to cancer that can be linked to the two terms xu1 and shi2, which by the way simply do not mean deficiency and excess. These are two very clear examples of the way in which the non-familiar is zapped into familiarity by the translator's pen. Students of Chinese medicine should be made to understand how non-familiar these two terms are as a prerequisite to gaining any understanding of what they mean. And the crime of forcing non-equivalent equivalencies such as deficient and excess down students' throats only exacerbates the whole sad situations. Xu1 and shi2 have no constant abstract theoretical value. They are diagnostic terms in Chinese medicine that relate to individual situations. Everyone has xu1 and shi2. The taiji classics contain some deep insights into xu1 and shi2 including one passage that reads: each place in the body has the same xu1 and shi2. So it is not meaningful to try and associate constant values of xu1 and shi2 to supposedly correlative markers used to identify organic activity according to Western medical assay. In patient X, who may well be characterized by xu1 patterns, marker Y may indicate a deficiency of some particular substance of activity. Yet patient Z, who may well be characterized by shi2 patterns may also show this same pattern of deficiency according to the identical marker in the Western clinical assessment. There are just a handful of possibilities given these few variables. Any might obtain from diagnosis according to the two approaches of Western and Chinese medicine, and this doesn't begin to take into account the variety of interprative approaches one might encounter from one practitioner of Chinese medicine to another. So what is being correlated? Confusion, unfortunately. I wholeheartedly agree with and endorse the purpose you state above. And I think more than ever that if we aim as a group to move forward out of the confusions that we have thus far created and sustained, one early, in fact immediate step that we need to take is to recognize the actual condition of things. While debate continues to rage about the meanings of the most basic terms, and where people are admitted to this debate and granted widespread credence who more or less lack the qualifications to take part, it will likely remain difficult for this awareness to spread throughout the community. People will continue to be confused and misled by what they will see as noise and fury signifying nothing. But everyone can perform a kind of self-test to determine where you are as an individual when it comes to this sort of confusion. Ask yourself what each of the terms listed below means, and if you have any questions, just recognize that you don't know. According to the Dao De Jing, that is the way to go about knowing. And if you want to know Chinese medicine, this approach to knowledge was, if not well known at least readily available to be known by the authors of the texts on which Chinese medicine at least claims to be based. It's not a bad idea, in other words, to know what knowledge meant to the ancient Chinese doctors and scholars who recorded the knowledge that you think you are using in your clinic today. In the past when I've forwarded this kind of appeal, a certain percentage of folks get bent out of shape over who the heck I think I am and how can I say things like this? But that really isn't where it's at. Just ask yourself, What is: qi yin yang wu xing xu shi jing luo zang fu And that's enough. If you know what those terms mean, great. If you don't, that's great, too. But listen carefully to your answers. Explain what these things mean to people who have never heard of them, and then see how clearly you have let someone else understand them. Well, there you go provoking my thoughts again, Sammy. Thanks, Ken Membership requires that you do not post any commerical, swear, religious, spam messages,flame another member or swear. To change your email settings, i.e. individually, daily digest or none, visit the groups’ homepage: Chinese Medicine/ click ‘edit my membership' on the right hand side and adjust accordingly. To send an email to <Chinese Medicine- > from the email account you joined with. You will be removed automatically but will still recieve messages for a few days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 29, 2003 Report Share Posted December 29, 2003 Sammy, > > You are provoking my thoughts too ! Glad to return the favor. Please let's make it clear that working for the development of the capacity for professionals who cope with such conditions as prostate cancer in the real world to communicate clearly and effectively among themselves and with their respective publics is part of dealing with those conditions. Each of us has his or her own clinical as well as personal scenes. The discussion about language is all too frequently pushed to the side as being a separate issue from clinical reality. But nothing is more central to clinical realities in Chinese medicine than the ability to communicate with the patient. Of course not all such communication takes place via language, but language affects, effects, informs, and influences virtually all such interactions. And those who seek clinical efficacy are well advised to pay attention to these matters, both in terms of their own personal sense of certainty, uncertainty, and understanding and in terms of the development of a professional approach to confronting and dealing with challenges such as prostate cancer in the real world. While we continue to tolerate the degraded handling of language, terminology, translation and related matters in education and training in the field, we continue to foster the confusions that isolate and undermine the work of clinicians everywhere. Ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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