Today, we had our first clinical site visit to a TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) clinic at Kwong Wah Hospital. This was an exciting day very much filled with interesting interactions and eye-opening clinical observations. Before this trip, I saw TCM as being an alternative way of treating health problems, but I began to think today that TCM may be an "alternative", but it is a very big and important alternative here in Hong Kong. As we toured the pharmacy, I began to dismiss old ideas I had about TCM. I had seen herbal medicine as being a medicine that was not a science like our drugs/medications. What I saw in this pharmacy was just the opposite. The drugs were not pills, but were specific combinations, personalized for each patient. And, like the pills that we prescribe people in the U.S., these people are given specific instructions about how to take the medicine (ie. how long to boil an herb, or to heat a packet that had already been soaked in herbs). Very impressive.
Miriam Lundy (TCM Journal March 11, 2009)
Photography by Rick Allen
