Students' Fortune and Misfortune
I fell ill, and learned that TCM is not feudal superstition
Our kind of college is all science-track; we students study math-physics-chem from a young age — our thinking is already very Westernized. In my first year, when Foundational Theories of TCM taught yin-yang and five-phase, I really could not accept it. That year I came to hate the major and dropped it. Because I thought: what is this stuff, plain feudal superstition? Maybe I had a karma with TCM. In my second year I fell ill and met an old TCM doctor who cured me. He was over ninety; originally Western-trained, he turned to TCM in his forties. Because I was a TCM student myself and was sick, he explained, from the signs of my own case, how TCM theory works in fact. I came to feel TCM theory in my own body. So I understood: TCM theory is not pulled from the air, and not the feudal superstition I had thought. Yin-yang and five-phase is not that. Gradually I sensed the theory has firm grounds; that was when I started studying TCM again. Later I found TCM vast and deep, worth a lifetime.
But not every student can be expected to fall ill and, by such an experience, come to know TCM again. Around me, many classmates have views like my first ones.
When I go home and meet old high-school friends, I find that mentioning TCM ideas to the science-track friends brings derision. With humanities-track friends, the talk goes easily; we understand each other. The college-entrance exam rule: medical-school applicants must come from the science track. Our school admits only science-track students; is that reasonable? It is worth thought.
TCM students themselves do not trust TCM
On teaching staff: our school still has a number of fine, TCM-knowing teachers. But from my own experience, undergraduates rarely meet them. The famous old TCM masters we almost never see.
The teachers we usually meet read from the book in class — they have nothing of their own to say, no experience of their own. They are in the lab all day, treating mice, feeding mice Chinese herbs — what TCM experience can they have? How can human and mouse be made equal? TCM has been practiced on humans for millennia — a people-first medicine; how can we substitute the mouse? In a discipline like TCM, born of clinical practice, a teacher without clinical experience cannot teach well. Our teachers mostly lack clinical experience — and so have nothing to say in class.
Also, TCM rank-titles are mainly judged by paper count, so teachers heavy in lab work get high titles (while teachers rich in clinical experience may not write many papers). When such high-title teachers are put before us — and their own clinical experience is thin — at the bedside they cannot take a pulse; they look lost. So we don't want to ask them; we've found that they don't know. One teacher actually said in class: "If not for the diploma, you should drop out."
Many teachers are TCM PhDs and teach TCM, but rarely read the TCM classics. They do not trust TCM themselves: when ill, they take Western drugs.
TCM education's continuity is broken
Today's schooling, from primary school on, is not quite right — there is little traditional-culture education, and only at university does TCM appear. Students spend more than ten years before college in modern education; then at university they are suddenly asked to read these ancient texts. Acceptance is hard; the knowledge doesn't link with what they had before. In the old days TCM education was continuous; now it is broken. There must be strengthened traditional-culture education in primary and secondary school. Today's children don't know how precious tradition is.
Many TCM students do not understand TCM — do not know it is a treasure-house — and so cannot study well. Our literary-Chinese base is poor; the school-hours for literary Chinese are insufficient; reading TCM classics is a real problem. And no teacher to help us through philology — basic things in TCM study.
Because of mistrust of TCM, so many Western courses
I came because I love TCM. After arriving I was deeply disappointed. With the textbook I am very dissatisfied; I feel it has used the Western frame to slice TCM up, instead of writing along TCM's own laws.
The TCM colleges' course layout shows strong self-distrust. Our TCM courses 60%, Western 40%; why so many Western courses? Why don't Western medical schools have 40% TCM? As one teacher said: "So that you, in clinical work later, will be useful." I think: because of mistrust in TCM, so many Western courses.
Some classmates take TCM very lightly. By fourth or fifth year: "We've about got it." But whether they can really see patients is doubtful. When they fall ill themselves, they cannot write a formula; they come to the hospital to ask a teacher. The teacher may not have much depth — the prescription doesn't help. Then to Western medicine — Western results come fast — and they reject everything they learned. So TCM colleges' failure to train real TCM is not all the students' fault. I find them very unfortunate.
From Modern Education News, 10 August 2001.