Chinese Medicine Ails from Brain Drain

By Rebecca Davis

Dr. Wang Juyi examines a patient while several students stand around and observe during his Saturday morning clinic hours. Today, Wang holds clinic hours only twice a week serving mostly friends and family.

Shelley Oches left her private acupuncture practice in Louisville,
Kentucky eight months ago to study classical Chinese medicine—a
tradition that has largely been phased out of medical schools in China
as Western medicine has come into vogue in the globalizing country.

The Acupuncturist

By

American doctor Shelley Oches explains why she came to China to study traditional Chinese medicine under Dr. Wang Juyi.

Medical Fortune Telling

Dim natural light streamed into the room, where a hospital bed stretched nearly the length of one wall. A monk, two translators and four of my fellow correspondents crowded around me as a Taoist doctor rattled off my diagnosis.

“Cancer...

“No, breast disease...

“No, not now. In the future. Maybe.”

I panicked, searching the eyes of each person in the room for reassurance. Nothing. My colleagues looked glad they were not in my position.

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