The Mission of Medicine

Almost 40 years have passed from when I first entered medical school in 1984 to our present day, and in the course of that time, I have learned everything I could about medicine through both professional practice and research. There’s a historical significance to 40 years—around three thousand and five hundred years ago, the Israelites by the hand of God were tested in the desert wilderness for 40 years, to recognize God, experience God, and through Moses received a set of holistic laws for living their best lives, and these laws were to govern the Israelites, and the rest of the Judeo Christian world, providing a foundational framework for society to live as a healthy whole. This is how we might understand the theory of healing of Traditional Chinese Medicine as well—to consider the body as a system, each of our parts making up a harmonious and well balanced functioning society of ourselves.

We might consider 40 years to hold significance as an era of time, and when the Israelites pleaded God almost 3000 years ago for their own independence and governance, God granted them this wish and laid the foundations through three sets of leaders. King Saul ruled for 40 years, King David ruled for 40 years, King Solomon ruled for 40 years. Every 40 years of continuous leadership and growth brought along drastic change. My own journey these past 40 years to understand the mission of medicine has taken me from an unknowing youth blundering about, poking around to find the right things to study, to the healer I am today, with God given wisdom, experience, and knowledge around healing and wellness. It’s not for me to keep these learnings to myself, but rather something to share with those I have the good fortune of being friends with. I also hope that these fortunate friends are able to find God’s secret to healing and wellness, and find themselves living abundant, prosperous, healthy, and happy lives.

These notes and considerations mostly come from my patients and the pain points, questions, discussions, challenges, and most importantly the stories that come from their day to day lives. So let us take note that these are anecdotes and case studies from my own practice—not data to jump to any conclusions and systematic frameworks to codify prescriptive treatments, but rather to learn from these stories a glimpse of the philosophy and ineffable mission of healing, to understand the mindset to wellness, and explore the necessary faith in our own bodies to maintain health. These stories and references are a foundation for exploration of the mystery of medicine, for the studies that are currently beyond what academic research has already been able to cover. 

Albert and Ally (names changed for privacy) are a husband and wife hailing from Ukraine. They are happy and successful in their marriage and business, and live in a lovely (and wealthy) suburb just north of Chicago with their two adorable daughters. One of their daughters attends public school, but has access to a private school level of education—she even has a Chinese class at school, which her parents helped her decide to take, because when they were in Singapore, had met quite a few Chinese speaking Singaporeans. So it’s through this cultural interest and a reference from a friend that they came to be my patients.  

Albert was a prodigy and studied mathematics in Moscow as well as at the University of Berkeley in California. He currently researches algorithms for a financial investment firm and because of this work, he has lived in Singapore and Japan, and while there received acupuncture, massage, and Traditional Chinese medicine treatments for healing and wellness. Ally, Albert’s wife, conceived their daughter through a course of these treatments following a bout of infertility. Because of Albert and Ally’s time in Asia, as well as some shared culture between our homelands, we have quite a few shared overlaps around cuisine, diet, political history, values on education and raising children—and so forth which leads to a lot of interesting discussions. Ally is a phenomenal mother and cares so much about her children’s wellbeing, paying particular attention to their health, wellbeing, and tactics on raising them. Getting healthy and keeping well is the main goal of our practice—we believe and encourage our patients to be their own doctors, because every person knows their own body the best, and that every person has the closest understanding of how their symptoms feel. We as healers are merely providing the tools for healing, whether it be herbs or acupuncture needles or point out massage points, but the healing work is one that must be carried out by the patient themselves. Ally learned after a period of time how to use herbs and tonics whenever she felt a cold or sore throat coming on, and has started to adopt these healing practices for her own lifestyle. 

Our clinic provides healing sessions that last around 2 hours at a time. Every session includes around 15 minutes of diagnostics to understand where you are in your healing process. We ask about your lifestyle, nutritional needs, health goals, and take a pulse and tongue reading to understand your vitals, and use acupressure to understand the state of your bodily comfort. Typically, most patients will receive acupuncture, using a specific technique that penetrates only the surface of the skin, and this light touch means that most patients report no pain from the procedure. If you are scared of pain from needles, this is the right procedure for you. This takes around 45 minutes, and during this time, we create the conditions for relaxation and qi (energy) channeling. Our patients find this to be an incredibly soothing procedure, reflecting that while they are lying on the acupuncture table, they feel at peace in mind and body, and the pain they come in with melts away. Many patients come in because of some pain in their body, and many report that after just one session, so much of it has reduced and gone away. 

They often ask “How is it that acupuncture reduces aches and pains? How does acupuncture heal illnesses? What is the foundational framework for how it works?”. Albert was no different—he asked the same questions the first time. These questions are quite complex. My friends, we’ll get to know the intricacies to the answers through a series of case studies, stories, and patterns. 

Albert also wanted to know if every traditional Chinese medicine practitioner could achieve the same seemingly miraculous results through these techniques. As shrimp grow their own shells and oranges grow their own peels, I had no choice in becoming the healer that I have become, as a result of every stage of my life, and so here our story begins.

从1984年我进入医学院至今，已近40年。在这期间，我通过临床实践和研究，尽可能地学习了医学知识。40年具有重要的历史意义——大约3500年前，上帝让以色列人在旷野中受试炼40年，以此来认识上帝、体验上帝，并通过摩西领受了一套关于如何过上美好生活的整体性律法。这些律法不仅规范了以色列人，也规范了整个犹太教-基督教世界，为社会的健康和谐奠定了基础。我们或许也可以用同样的方式来理解传统中医的治疗理论——将人体视为一个系统，我们身体的每个部分共同构成了一个和谐平衡、运转良好的整体。

我们或许会认为四十年是一个重要的时间节点。大约三千年前，以色列人向上帝祈求独立和自治，上帝应允了他们的请求，并通过三代君王奠定了基础。扫罗王统治了四十年，大卫王统治了四十年，所罗门王统治了四十年。每四十年的持续统治和发展都带来了翻天覆地的变化。过去四十年，我为了理解医学的使命，也经历了一段漫长的旅程。我从一个懵懂无知的年轻人，摸索着寻找合适的学习方向，成长为如今的医者，拥有上帝赐予的智慧、经验和知识，致力于治愈和健康。我并不打算将这些经验据为己有，而是想与我有幸结识的朋友们分享。我也衷心希望这些幸运的朋友能够找到上帝赐予的治愈和健康的秘诀，拥有丰盛、富足、健康和幸福的人生。

这些笔记和思考主要来自我的患者，以及他们遇到的痛点、疑问、讨论、挑战，以及最重要的，他们日常生活中的故事。因此，请注意，这些是我自身诊疗实践中的轶事和案例研究——并非用于得出任何结论或建立系统框架来规范处方治疗的数据，而是为了让我们从这些故事中窥见治愈的哲学和难以言喻的使命，理解健康的心态，并探索维持健康所需的对自身身体的信任。这些故事和参考资料为探索医学的奥秘奠定了基础，也为目前学术研究尚未涵盖的研究领域提供了基础。

阿尔伯特和艾莉（为保护隐私，此处使用化名）是一对来自乌克兰的夫妇。他们的婚姻和事业都很幸福美满，与他们两个可爱的女儿居住在芝加哥北部一个美丽（且富裕）的郊区。他们其中一个女儿就读于公立学校，但却能接受私立学校水平的教育——她甚至在学校里选修了中文课。这门课是她父母鼓励她选修的，因为他们在新加坡时结识了不少会说中文的新加坡人。正是出于这种文化兴趣，加上朋友的推荐，他们才成为了我的病人。

艾伯特是个神童，曾在莫斯科和加州大学伯克利分校学习数学。他目前在一家金融投资公司从事算法研究，因此曾在新加坡和日本生活过。在那里，他接受了针灸、按摩和中医治疗，以促进身心健康。艾伯特的妻子艾莉在经历不孕症后，通过这些治疗成功怀上了他们的女儿。由于艾伯特和艾莉都曾在亚洲生活过，加上我们两国文化背景相似，我们在饮食、饮食习惯、政治历史、教育价值观和育儿方式等方面有很多共同之处，这让我们之间有很多有趣的讨论。艾莉是一位了不起的母亲，她非常关心孩子的健康，尤其关注他们的身心健康以及养育方式。保持健康是我们诊所的主要目标——我们相信并鼓励患者成为自己的医生，因为每个人都最了解自己的身体，也最能体会自身症状的感受。作为治疗师，我们只是提供治疗的工具，无论是草药、针灸还是按摩穴位，但真正的疗愈工作必须由患者自己完成。艾莉在一段时间后学会了如何在感冒或喉咙痛时使用草药和补品，并开始将这些疗愈方法融入到自己的生活中。

我们诊所提供的疗程每次大约持续2小时。每次疗程包含大约1个疗程。