In our very first post on our newly created blog I would like to say couple of words about what it is that we are doing and what is the purpose of our Project.
It seems that nowadays Chinese medicine is floating in a nowhere land. In the West it remains largely undiscovered - people are getting more curious and more open to TCM but not necessarily to the point that would take them to see a TCM practitioner. In the East on the other hand TCM seems to disturbingly fade away. I say this because I have been lived and worked in China for nearly seven years and couldn’t help but notice that mainly middle age people and elderly seek the help of TCM practitioners, visit herbal pharmacies, practice Tai Qi in the parks... The young people do not seem interested in this knowledge, they treat it as old fashioned and boring, some of my students even ridicule it. Without being dramatic I simply ask “What will happen to traditional Chinese medicine?”
So back to the purpose of the Holosapiens Project. We hope that you would take some time and read a little bit about TCM on the Project's website (and please know that we worked very hard to write our materials in a way that they will be easily understandable, enjoyable and inspirational!). We hope that the new outlook you develop would inspire you to search a TCM practitioner in your area and consult with him/her about your health. Maybe you would get some books and read further on. Or simply embrace the essentials and add another perspective to the one you already have.
If you are medical professional maybe you could use the tools we designed in our Customized option which will enable you to easily add some of TCM’s beautiful knowledge and wisdom to your medical practice. Yes, Western medicine and Chinese medicine are completely different and they should not be mixed together or used to explain or rationalize one another. Yet, in my experience they can peacefully co-exist regardless their fundamental differences, simply used as two different treatment methods simultaneously offered to the patient. We are not the first ones to support Eastern - Western medicine collaboration – it has been done for decades both in the East and in the West, and proven to be very effective. Certainly it is best when a medical doctor and a TCM practitioner share a practice and physically work together but if this is not possible for one reason or another – the Holosapiens Project offers an alternative. And this alternative is available not only for Western medicine medical doctors but for health care practitioners with any medical background.
If you are a TCM practitioner with a very busy practice you could use some of the tools in the Customized option to help you save some valuable time. If you work predominantly with acupuncture and herbal medicine maybe the “food as medicine” approach widely developed on the Project would inspire you to incorporate it and add yet another great tool to your successful practice.
In any case our aim is to enrich health care professionals of any kind and inspire health-conscious people to further deepen their knowledge.
Our hope is that by embracing, using and referring to Traditional Chinese Medicine we will help conserve it. We would create a special space for it that is not necessarily in the East or in the West but rather somewhere in our open minds. Thus together take it out of nowhere land…
