*The Scholar Studies Medicine — Like Catching a Chicken in the Coop*
Ancient education stressed reading the Four Books and Five Classics, so TCM was called the Confucian doctor. After reading those books, reading medical books came easily. Medical books are records of practice; though in classical Chinese, with not much complex content. So in the past, a man who had read the Four Books and Five Classics could pick up medical books and self-study. He could understand fully — no barrier — just as the saying goes: the scholar studies medicine — like catching a chicken in the coop. A folk saying — meaning the scholar finds medical books quite easy.
What has emerged now? After the 1911 Revolution China did educational reform; reading the classics was abolished; this greatly affected Chinese education thereafter. After Beijing TCM College was founded, the textbooks were originally the originals. The teacher gave Shanghan Lun, and the textbook was the original. But by then students' classical-Chinese was not high. High-school-educated students did not have the cultural base TCM requires; the knowledge they had did not connect with TCM. From an education angle, the continuity was broken. TCM needs classical-Chinese as base; but students of this period had little of it, so they could hardly grasp the TCM classics. More importantly, the teacher's text was the original, and students found it hard. So teachers were assigned to compile textbooks for high-school-graduate students.
After the Cultural Revolution, TCM colleges began to admit students again. Then came the so-called three-seven split: thirty percent Western medicine, seventy percent TCM. But over time Western medicine grew, TCM shrank. Study of the classics in particular grew thin.
Now some doctors after graduation are half-vinegared in Western medicine, half in TCM — both incomplete. Many doctors today are weak in foundation, especially in clinical practice. Without following senior TCM practitioners in apprenticeship, without seeing — it does not work. TCM teaching, TCM teachers, even teachers of basic theory — cannot be off the clinic. Western teachers in anatomy may not see patients; teachers in pathology may still see patients — TCM cannot. Teachers of TCM basic theory who cannot see patients cannot teach theory well. So one must never be off the clinic. Now young teachers at our universities, some do not like to go to the clinic. The teacher-ranks themselves have problems. So TCM education has not a single problem but many.
From Modern Education News, August 10, 2001.