Book Review: Integrating East Asian Medicine into Contemporary Healthcare

Integrating East Asian medicine into contemporary healthcare Edited Volker Scheid Hugh MacPherson. Published by Elsevier, 2012. Paperback 244 pp. ISBN 978 0 7020 3021 5 > ‘but health is whatever works/and for as long…’ > > John Stone ‘He Makes a House Call’ Although Western medical acupuncture (WMA) is based on a more ‘mainstream’ biomedical approach to diagnosis and management of a problem, there are still some obvious overlaps with traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Take for example, the nomenclature of specific points and meridians, used in both WMA and TCM, which allows us to record treatment plans identifying previously needled points for future reference, which would be understood by either practitioner. The concept of qi is also used in both WMA and TCM. However, digging deeper there appear to be few further similarities between the two, with many of the TCM concepts of diagnosis and management of a problem being somewhat of an enigma, without the appropriate training and experience. Is it possible to merge the two, to obtain the best of both worlds? Are they really so different? What are the potential benefits and pitfalls? Is it just about integrating TCM into Western medicine, or evolving TCM into a more modern version of itself by and for its own practitioners? With a book titled Integrating East Asian Medicine into Contemporary Healthcare …