I have gotten a few requests from folks on specific things they would like to know about my experiences here. Some would like to know only about the clinic experiences, some the culture, some the faith, etc. So I thin that I'll do a separate post for each of those. How does that sound?
So, this post is only about my clinic experiences.
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We have finished 2 weeks of clinic work in the Chengdu Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
We have been assigned to either the in-patient 7th floor or the out-patient 3rd floor. We been assigned to four different doctors.
The hospital has many different departments, such as internal medicine, respiration, digestion, gynecology, cardiology, etc. But we have only been assigned to the Acupuncture Department on those 2 floors.
We have primarily seen Wind-Stroke and facial paralysis. People do come in for other things but this has been what we've mostly seen. They will not assign us to anything other than the acupuncture department. You have to be a doctor or a doctoral level candidate to be assigned any thing else.
We have had many lectures in the afternoons relating to some aspect of Traditional Chinese Medicine, such as, infertility, Ghost points, point combinations, and cupping. Next week we'll have lectures on allergy, asthma, and respiration.
I think/hope that we'll be assigned with the doctor who gave us the Ghost Points lecture. This means that I hope we'll see some Mental Disease Disorders next week. They have changed the schedule a few times, so I'm not sure what we'll actually be having.
Out of the two weeks, we have been allowed to needle just two days so far. The people are paying good money for the doctor to needle them and they seem to be reluctant to have us needle them. We hope to needle much more next week as we think that they are getting used to us now. We'll see.
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The four doctors come from different schools of thought from within TCM. We've had an expert on the 5 Element School, one who is an expert from the 6 Level School, one from the 8 Principle school and one from the Classics. They has been very good for us to see/learn from these experts. In China, there is an actual title of "Famous" and we've had three "Famous" doctors, which is very good for us.
Our lectures have been excellent and we're learning so much. We have to process all that we've learned and compile them into notes when we get back.
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The people mostly do not have health care insurance and have to pay out of their own pocket. They have to go to the doctor first, get a script that says how many treatments they'll need. They go back to the cashier and pay for that number of treatments (usually about 30-40 Yuan per treatment; about $4-6 which is a lot of money to them). They have to bring their receipt back to the department/clinic and then they can start getting their treatments.
They come in, sit down and the doctor comes over and listens, asks a few questions and starts needling them. The usually have the needles in for about 15 - 20 minutes (some up to 30 minutes), many times the have the TDP (heat) lamp on the body part that is affected, and many times they'll have gladd and/or bamboo cupping.
Here are some pictures with needling and cupping:
I hope that this answers some of the questions for people who've wanted to know about our clinic experiences.
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