My China Trip
Angela and Bruna at the hospital in China
As you may have noticed, I was out of the office for two weeks in September. Did you wonder what I was up to? Myself and our True Health Assistant, Bruna, spent two weeks at Long Hua Traditional Chinese Medical Hospital in Shanghai, China. Here’s a little about our adventure.
We had the opportunity to travel with a group of students from Wongu University, where I teach here in Las Vegas, and a few other practitioners from around the United States. The focus of the trip was to spend two weeks at the Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital observing the many different departments and how Chinese Medicine is used there.
It was quite eye opening! The first day we arrived at the hospital, there were long lines of people waiting to see the docs; the photo shows how many were waiting to enter. The hospital was just as large as some of our local hospitals here in Vegas, and all those people at the hospital there were waiting to see an Oriental Medical Doctor (OMD). Each day we observed appointments in different specialties: Oncology, Gynecology, Gastroenterology, Dermatology and more. It was so amazing to see!
Herbs
Each day the Doctors would see about 40-60 patients in the 4 hours we observed. How were they being treated you may wonder? Each patient was seen by the doctor, they spoke about their symptoms, their tongue and pulse were examined, and then a traditional Chinese herb formula was prescribed. Yes, that’s right, their first line of treatment was Chinese Herbs. Though one of the most interesting parts of the observations was to learn that the OMD’s there were also able to prescribe Western Pharmaceuticals. They chose Western medication occasionally, but almost always still prescribed Chinese herbs too. So for example, a patient came in with severe acid reflux. The OMD prescribed a medication like Nexium to help alleviate the symptoms, while also prescribing herbs to help treat the ROOT of the problem. The Doctor would then tell the patient to take them both for a couple weeks, then reduce or stop the Western medication and continue on the herbs to make sure the symptoms didn’t return. This way of treatment is quite different from here in the United states, where it seems Eastern and Western Medicine, at times, battle each other. The combination of the two medicines I feel could so greatly benefit us here in the States and it is something I continually strive to promote!
We spent a lot of time in the hospital and different lectures, but we did also get to do some traveling and sightseeing. We were able to visit the Great Wall, The Bundt, eat some amazing Chinese food; even tried things like the Peking Duck, chicken stomach, Intestines and snake soup. I even attended a local Chinese Football (soccer) match!
We all had an amazing time and learned a lot. I am excited to bring some of the information I learned back to True Health and the Vegas Community!