Writing for the Public, DAOM, etc.

[Guest guest]

All,

Not answering any specific post but addressing the recent subjects of interest and hoping to keep this post from turning into a small book...

 

Regarding books I would like to see: Bob Flaws and Daniel Finney put out what used to be called Compendium and now Handbook, with a longer title I forget, about diagnosis and treatment. The intent of the book was to present a more real-world set of scenarios of pattern diagnoses and treatments for modern Western patients, as I see it. So far, the book looks like the best single, relatively bite-sized book available on the subject. The problem with it to me is that it still seems too full of Chinese diagnostic scenarios and usually over the top as far as how Westerners present. Yes, people come in with patterns like that, but not usually that bad, not so "third-world." The pulses and tongues presented seem more nearly realistic and are often a vast improvement over the simplistic ones presented in other books. But having tried this book out as a textbook more than once, I agree with students who find it to be unrealistic overall.

 

It seems to me that more than anything, this profession's educational system needs textbooks that present pattern diagnoses that fit real Western patients in the 21st century as closely as possible. Maciocia's gold book is an attempt at that, too, and it is valuable, but it is huge and unwieldy, and his formulas and points, though perhaps effective, are often unjustifiable, at least in part, by anything we have on hand to refer to. I admit I haven't read Bob F.'s recent large book on the treatment of disease with TCM, so I can't say if it's more what I'm looking for or not.

 

Secondly, I want to endorse Bob F.'s recent post about making a decent living as an acupuncturist/herbalist. While I agree that our current educational system doesn't properly prepare students to make a good living, I also agree with his assertion that we already possess all the legal and medical wherewithal to make $100K a year or more. This aspect of our profession more than any other seems to me what would make the most difference to the future. If and when we all commit ourselves to making $100K or more a year from our practices, whatever that takes, and we make it happen, then our profession will be transformed forever. We will have the money to contribute to organizations and schools that will help them grow and have the political power that can only come from either money or guns. Since I presume we're not planning outright guerrilla warfare, we have to take the money route to power. Which means we all need to become real honest-to-God dedicated businesspeople.

 

Have no illusions. We must cultivate power, or we are doomed. We must learn to play the power game at least as well as our colleagues in other professions. When we are all or mostly making really good money, and only then, will other professionals give us the time of day. One of my colleagues said that CM in America has been like a closely guarded diamond being held tightly to our bosoms, and I think she is right. While that may have been the appropriate strategy for starters, like a mother hen on her egg, now it is time to change.

 

We do not need to worry about selling our souls for money. We need money or we will lose our souls. What I really think our long-range goal should be is nothing short of overthrowing the medical practices act and putting our paradigm in charge. I can hear the snorts of derision. But that seems to me what would serve humanity best. Yes, modern medicine is irreplaceable for its usefulness and information, but the way it is used would be vastly improved and will only reach its full potential with a CM paradigm or something like it overseeing it. What we are about, it seems to me, is reinjecting the humanity into medicine and science, the humanity which has been lost. There is only one cure for disease, and that is ease. We have that understanding and the ability to give true ease and teach people how to cultivate it. Let us commit ourselves to doing what it takes to keep our medicine alive: infiltrate and slowly, patiently take over the prevailing paradigm; work with other professions and come up with win-win money situations where we are not taking money away from them but making more for each of us; etc. Let us stop worrying so much about protecting our profession. The best defense is a good offense. Make money, be businesspeople, work towards employing chiropractors and doctors instead of always the other way around. Show them how it's done. Yes, it's a lot of work, but what else will do the trick so well? Of course we must never lose sight of pattern diagnosis, but if I have to work in a PI clinic two or three days a week or more to make the money I need to be comfortable, I will. Hell, I'll even consider learning the ropes and then starting one myself. Not only could I employ chiropractors and such but give beginning practitioners a venue to make money and establish themselves. It is a sacrifice to my professional pride, but I'm tired of being proud and poor. I choose to be humble and rich. Whatever it takes, I'm going to make money AND practice real TCM, at least part of the time. How else are we ever going to do things like start TCM hospitals?

Joseph Garner

[Guest guest]

>>>Joseph,

 

The issue is trying to preserve the tradition at the same time as

evolving or advancing it. For me, it is YOUR job as a teacher using

this textbook to point out to your students which are the commonly

seen patterns and which are the more "third world" ones. I believe

that we would've been doing the fabric and transmission of the

medicine a disservice were we to have left out these patterns.

After all, the original title of the book and the Preface still do

make it clear that the book was/is meant as a comprehensive compendium

of patterns. Who knows, someone somewhere might come across the more

"third world" patterns. I know I did when I was a student in China and

when I practiced in India and Nepal. Blue Poppy Press has customers in

Central and South America as well as in Souteast Asia.

 

Further, if we left these well-known standard but rarely seen

in the West patterns out altogether and the book fell into the hands

of a recently arrived Chinese teacher, they would say the book was

incomplete and no good. Then students, not knowing any better but

taking their Chinese teachers as authoritative, would chuck the book

for that reason.

 

Even the best textbooks need good teachers to really make the material

come alive. That's supposed to be what you're getting paid to do.

 

This book was rewritten only a year or two ago. At this point, I think

I'm pretty satisfied with it. Sorry you're not.

 

Bob  <<<

 

Bob,

Sorry if I sounded too whiny. I understand the points you made about your worldwide audience and such. It really wasn't myself who complained, it was others who've kept bringing it up to me, other teachers included. What I suggest is a book that addresses itself particularly to American/European practice. I know this is asking for some balkanization of the medicine, but realistically people in industrialized countries can present with the same patterns very differently from elsewhere, and students and inexperienced practitioners can look in a book such as yours and not find the pattern that's staring them in the face. Yes, as a teacher, it's my responsibility to point out the differences, and I do, over and over. I used your book because I liked it. At least it's the best one available for its purposes. I just get tired of listening to people complaining about it.

 

For my own use, the only problem I have with it, and this also is a bit of a hassle with teaching it, is that there seem to be a lot of patterns which are only a Seirin needle's width apart, i.e., they are practically the same thing. I don't always see the use in making such fine distinctions in my own clinic, much less in class.

Joseph Garner

[Guest guest]

The problem

with it to me is

> that it still seems too full of Chinese diagnostic scenarios and

usually over the

> top as far as how Westerners present. Yes, people come in with

patterns like

> that, but not usually that bad, not so " third-world. " The pulses and

tongues

> presented seem more nearly realistic and are often a vast

improvement over the

> simplistic ones presented in other books. But having tried this book

out as a

> textbook more than once, I agree with students who find it to be

unrealistic

> overall.

 

Joseph,

 

The issue is trying to preserve the tradition at the same time as

evolving or advancing it. For me, it is YOUR job as a teacher using

this textbook to point out to your students which are the commonly

seen patterns and which are the more " third world " ones. I believe

that we would've been doing the fabric and transmission of the

medicine a disservice were we to have left out these patterns.

After all, the original title of the book and the Preface still do

make it clear that the book was/is meant as a comprehensive compendium

of patterns. Who knows, someone somewhere might come across the more

" third world " patterns. I know I did when I was a student in China and

when I practiced in India and Nepal. Blue Poppy Press has customers in

Central and South America as well as in Souteast Asia.

 

Further, if we left these well-known standard but rarely seen

in the West patterns out altogether and the book fell into the hands

of a recently arrived Chinese teacher, they would say the book was

incomplete and no good. Then students, not knowing any better but

taking their Chinese teachers as authoritative, would chuck the book

for that reason.

 

Even the best textbooks need good teachers to really make the material

come alive. That's supposed to be what you're getting paid to do.

 

This book was rewritten only a year or two ago. At this point, I think

I'm pretty satisfied with it. Sorry you're not.

 

Bob

[Guest guest]

, acugrpaz@a... wrote:

 

I admit I haven't read Bob F.'s

> recent large book on the treatment of disease with TCM, so I can't say if

> it's more what I'm looking for or not.

>

 

I think it is, if I interpret your words correctly, as is this entire new series

of

BP books. very 'real-life' and lots of commentary and even cases in some of

them.

 

[Guest guest]

seems to me that more than anything, this profession's educational system needs textbooks that present pattern diagnoses that fit real Western patients in the 21st century as closely as possible. Maciocia's gold book is an attempt at that, too, and it is valuable, but it is huge and unwieldy, and his formulas and points, though perhaps effective, are often unjustifiable, at least in part, by anything we have on hand to refer to. I admit I haven't read Bob F.'s recent large book on the treatment of disease with TCM, so I can't say if it's more what I'm looking for or not.>>>I could not agree more. The problem however is that most people writing books are not clinicians.

alon

 

[Guest guest]

there seem to be a lot of patterns

which are

> only a Seirin needle's width apart, i.e., they are practically the

same thing.

> I don't always see the use in making such fine distinctions in my

own clinic,

> much less in class.

> Joseph Garner

 

Joseph,

 

Such fine distinctions are probably not necessary when doing

acupuncture. However, in my experience when prescribing Chinese

medicinals for internal consumption, such fine distinctions are often

the difference between success and failure.

 

Bob

[Guest guest]

David,

Thank you for your comments and question. I guess I figured that the protective aspect of power was subsumed in what I was saying, but you're right that I didn't specifically state it. Power is for protection as well as influence. If one can't protect one's own turf, one can't widen its sphere of influence. And I'm sorry to admit that right now I am not a member of AAOM. I don't have the spare bucks. That may sound like a lame excuse, but it's the one I'm operating from, unfortunately.

 

I also wanted to thank Todd profusely for the superb conference. I got so enthused about the whole affair that I had a hard time keeping my mouth shut during presentations. On Saturday evening I spent hours writing down ideas that occurred to me from combining thoughts presented by different speakers mixed with the cluttered closet of ideas in my head. And the next day I kept bending people's ears with my half-baked ideas, so please forgive me. It was so wonderful to put faces to names and meet new people and listen to the high-quality presentations, questions and comments. I bet next year's will be a much larger affair, especially if held in Taos as was mentioned as a possibility. Though I really really (gush gush) appreciated all the speakers, I would like to single out as a person, and yes, I'm speaking about character here for a moment. Though all the presenters (and attendees, for that matter) strike me as people who strongly possess the quality of being what they seem to be, to me none possess it quite as much as Z'ev. He truly represents someone who confirms the quote from Jung that it's not so much what you know that heals, it's who you are.

 

The only disappointment I had was in who didn't show up. I was particularly hoping to meet Emmanuel, but if he was there, I couldn't tell. But in any case, this is one set of conference notes I will not let collect dust. Three cheers for the Shang Han Lun, the Wen Bing, knowing what you know and no more--no less, advancing on all fronts, and especially for people like all of you!

Joseph Garner

 

>>>I hate to say it, but you forgot to mention that we have to use part of that money to develop the political strength to avoid being screwed out of our field of medicine by those with money and/or  professionalism.

Are you a member of AAOM, by the way?

David Molony

In a message dated 6/11/03 4:52:33 PM, acugrpaz writes:

 

 

All,

....We do not need to worry about selling our souls for money. We need money or we will lose our souls....<<<

[Guest guest]

Joseph,

Unfortunately I did not get to speak with you but we will see each other next year no doubt.

This was one of the best conferences I have seen so far. and I have to second your keen observations of Ze'v, who for the past five years has patiently mentored me. He is all that and more, and the presentation he gave was one of his best, since the topic is his life and passion.

Etiacugrpaz wrote:

David,Thank you for your comments and question. I guess I figured that the protective aspect of power was subsumed in what I was saying, but you're right that I didn't specifically state it. Power is for protection as well as influence. If one can't protect one's own turf, one can't widen its sphere of influence. And I'm sorry to admit that right now I am not a member of AAOM. I don't have the spare bucks. That may sound like a lame excuse, but it's the one I'm operating from, unfortunately.I also wanted to thank Todd profusely for the superb conference. I got so enthused about the whole affair that I had a hard time keeping my mouth shut during presentations. On Saturday evening I spent hours writing down ideas that occurred to me from combining thoughts presented by different speakers mixed with the

cluttered closet of ideas in my head. And the next day I kept bending people's ears with my half-baked ideas, so please forgive me. It was so wonderful to put faces to names and meet new people and listen to the high-quality presentations, questions and comments. I bet next year's will be a much larger affair, especially if held in Taos as was mentioned as a possibility. Though I really really (gush gush) appreciated all the speakers, I would like to single out as a person, and yes, I'm speaking about character here for a moment. Though all the presenters (and attendees, for that matter) strike me as people who strongly possess the quality of being what they seem to be, to me none possess it quite as much as Z'ev. He truly represents someone who confirms the quote from Jung that it's not so much what you know that heals, it's who you are.The only disappointment I had was in who didn't show up. I was particularly hoping to meet Emmanuel, but if he was there, I

couldn't tell. But in any case, this is one set of conference notes I will not let collect dust. Three cheers for the Shang Han Lun, the Wen Bing, knowing what you know and no more--no less, advancing on all fronts, and especially for people like all of you!Joseph Garner>>>I hate to say it, but you forgot to mention that we have to use part of that money to develop the political strength to avoid being screwed out of our field of medicine by those with money and/or professionalism.Are you a member of AAOM, by the way?David MolonyIn a message dated 6/11/03 4:52:33 PM, acugrpaz writes:

All,...We do not need to worry about selling our souls for money. We need money or we will lose our souls....<<<Chinese Herbal Medicine, a voluntary organization of licensed healthcare practitioners, matriculated students and postgraduate academics specializing in Chinese Herbal Medicine, provides a variety of professional services, including board approved online continuing education.

[Guest guest]

I also thought this was the best conference I ever attended, and wished

more people were there. I felt like I was in the presence of Einstein,

Oppenheimer, Feynman and Crick all together discussing physics and

science! There was that much subtlety and depth in the presentations.

I also want to single out Sharon Weizenbaum for her compassion.

 

And, thank you, Joseph for your comments during my talk and your

appreciation. I'll try to live up to your expectations in the future:)

You've set them pretty high.

 

I personally invited Emmanuel, but his schedule was too busy to make it

this time. I hope he'll speak next year.

 

 

On Monday, June 16, 2003, at 01:26 PM, acugrpaz wrote:

 

> The only disappointment I had was in who didn't show up. I was

> particularly hoping to meet Emmanuel, but if he was there, I couldn't

> tell. But in any case, this is one set of conference notes I will not

> let collect dust. Three cheers for the Shang Han Lun, the Wen Bing,

> knowing what you know and no more--no less, advancing on all fronts,

> and especially for people like all of you!

[Guest guest]

I also was thrilled with the roster and the presentations! it has been a

long time since I so enjoyed being a student. I think that many of us,

particularly on the east coast, feel isolated: without colleagues to the

discuss subtleties and minutiae of Herbalism that I personally find so

juicy. you should feel proud: a great beginning!

Cara

 

 

> " " <zrosenbe

>

> Mon, 16 Jun 2003 13:42:40 -0700

>

> Re: Re: Re: Writing for the Public, DAOM, etc.

>

> I also thought this was the best conference I ever attended, and wished

> more people were there. I felt like I was in the presence of Einstein,

> Oppenheimer, Feynman and Crick all together discussing physics and

> science! There was that much subtlety and depth in the presentations.

> I also want to single out Sharon Weizenbaum for her compassion.

>

> And, thank you, Joseph for your comments during my talk and your

> appreciation. I'll try to live up to your expectations in the future:)

> You've set them pretty high.

>

> I personally invited Emmanuel, but his schedule was too busy to make it

> this time. I hope he'll speak next year.

>

>

> On Monday, June 16, 2003, at 01:26 PM, acugrpaz wrote:

>

>> The only disappointment I had was in who didn't show up. I was

>> particularly hoping to meet Emmanuel, but if he was there, I couldn't

>> tell. But in any case, this is one set of conference notes I will not

>> let collect dust. Three cheers for the Shang Han Lun, the Wen Bing,

>> knowing what you know and no more--no less, advancing on all fronts,

>> and especially for people like all of you!

>