Don't sniff at traditional Chinese medicine
It would be myopic for the medical
world to reject alternative medicine as a form of treatment ("World can gain from more TCM research"; Jan
17 and "Integrate TCM and Western medicine to best benefit patients"
by Ms Melissa Ong Zhi Lin; last Sunday).
If practitioners of modern medicine
and alternative practices like traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) keep fighting
among themselves instead of working together, the only ones who suffer are the
patients.
China has carried out extensive
research in the field of TCM. Many of its hospitals have successively
integrated TCM with modern medicine to increase the efficacy of treatment
programmes.
Take cancer treatment, for example.
In hospitals with an integrated treatment programme, patients undergoing
chemotherapy, radiotherapy or surgery would be prescribed TCM as well.
The statistics shows that not only
does the efficacy of the chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments increase, but
patients also suffer from fewer side effects and have lower chances of
suffering from relapses.
China has even successfully
incorporated arsenic, which has been known as a medicine and a poison, into the
treatment of acute promyelocytic leukaemia.
In another case, a train crash near
London in 2002 left Ms Tanya Liu, a TV anchorwoman of Hong Kong's Phoenix TV,
fighting for her life.
She was airlifted back to Beijing,
where she underwent an integrated treatment programme formulated by her
doctors. It included surgery, Western medicine and Chinese medicine.
She woke up from her coma after
about two months, could stand and walk on her own after half a year, and was
back at work in two years.
It is time modern medicine took a
look at TCM again and ask how it can be incorporated to help patients.
It is evident that most doctors have
little or no understanding of Chinese medicine. This has to change. At the end
of the day, the health and well-being of the patients should be the top
priority for all medical practitioners, Western and TCM alike.
This article comes from here.
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