Deepest Health Chinese Medicine Podcast : Episode 10 : End of term clinical reflections
Welcome to another Episode of the Deepest Health Podcast! In this episode, I discuss my reflections as I come to the end of my first term/quarter in clinic at NCNM. I reiterate the importance of memorization and excellent patient care, but then go in a philosophical direction on a couple of topics. First, I discuss my experience of being able to separate the disease from the person experiencing the disease. Second, I talk about the paradoxical reactions of some patients to treatment. I wrap up the podcast by a discussion of utilizing our many human gifts, referring often to the quintissential “Renaissance Man,” Leonardo da Vinci.
In the podcast, I reference a blog - but cannot remember the name of the blog, so cannot link to the post that inspired my da Vinci explorations. If you, for some strange reason, know what I’m talking about - let me know and I’ll link it. I also reference a book I’m currently reading about da Vinci and the practices one might take from his life. You can click on the link below to check it out.
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Tags: clinic, memorization, ncnm, patient care, Podcast
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7 Responses to “Deepest Health Chinese Medicine Podcast : Episode 10 : End of term clinical reflections”
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I just have one request. Listening to the podcast on some head phones it only comes across the left channel. If you can copy the left channel to the right it would be great!
Speak from the pulpit all you want Eric; it’s your blog :) We really can’t be lazy, especially as healers, because there is so much patching, and weeding, and transforming that must be done - the work is apparent everywhere I look. And about boredom, I’ve always found the interior realm of my conscious process to be an endless source of fascination. But I recognize that certain threads in my life allowed and encouraged me to look inward in this fashion, and for all of that good karma, I am profoundly grateful. Boredom, I believe, is the result of certain conditions that block awareness and curiosity. If you are willing to see, hear, open up all your senses, boredom vanishes in a puff of smoke.
So if boredom, and laziness, are ills created by certain conditions (culture of entitlement and distraction), then those are the conditions we need to address (healing on a slightly more macrocosmic scale). The how is up for debate, and each of us have a place in making a dent in those problems in whatever creative way we can. And maybe all of our efforts collectively will bring about this “renaissance.” Or maybe we have to wait for the big disaster to wake everyone up. I’m hoping it doesn’t have to be the latter.
I totally agree with what you said about the importance of memorization and especially about how important patient rapport/management is. I suspect there are quite a few practices that fail because of this second aspect, especially practices started by Chinese immigrants who were TCM doctors in China (I know because my mother has many such friends and acquaintances). Their challenge has to do with language and bridging the cultural divide and realizing that, although every patient benefits and appreciates warmth and caring from their physician, Americans that seek alternative health care expect it that much more.
But of course, patient rapport is an art that most everyone could stand improvement in, myself most certainly included. My sessions at the student clinic for massage school on the whole tended to be very superficial as far as the actual talking went. Basic intake information, ok, get on the table. And some clients clearly steered it that way, but I know a lot of it had to do with my own nervousness. I also can’t blame on the lack of time because rapport is something that can happen almost instantaneously. Question is how to create that with every client, no matter their personality, manners, etc.
This podcast also made think about the show House, M.D. It’s entertaining and exciting, with very engaging characters and all those other elements of good TV, but in light of thinking about holistic medicine and patient rapport, what the show depicts is a very clumsy way of practicing medicine. I know it’s fiction and doesn’t necessarily reflect what goes on in a real hospital. But as I was watching House’s team dispense toxic drugs and drastic, potentially fatal interventions, in a purely left-brained trial and error manner, half the time without being in contact with the patient (let alone through physical touch), I had to think that this probably isn’t so far from the truth of how allopathic medicine approaches its patients.
Like I said, it’s a fun show but I would like to see a show that emphasizes the human story of the patients, and not just as diagnostic puzzles or merely the boring container for a more interesting disease. I’d also like to see more examples in popular fiction/media that give a little glory to the physicians who aren’t in the ER’s. Maybe some writer will figure out how to pitch that one to the producers.
Well holy crap that was a long comment. Just one more though while my mind is engaged: when you mentioned the intense reactions of the skeptics, I was just thinking about how sometimes I wish had something more seriously out of balance in me, so I could experience a more shocking difference that acupuncture can make. But this speaks to what I said about “House” and how we all pay attention and heap praise on the dramatic, and not so much on the subtle. But the subtle is always where it starts right?
So let’s toast to the butterfly, and not disrespect the power of its little flapping wings (no one ever suspects the butterfly… :)
I see processes, mostly. There are exceptions of course. My problem area is with patients with huge defense barriers (they interact badly with mine… it’s like crossing the streams in Ghostbusters.). I get really REALLY frustrated with people who don’t do what they’re supposed to (i.e. what I tell them to). This is well, a bit insensitive of me, as these very people are in the middle of my expertise/experience, and I of all people should know to have some patience with them. However on the other side, I know how big of a difference CM can make if you, you know, take your freakin herbs, so I don’t plan on letting off the pressure TOO much. :D
And my advice for students here is the same as always: read for understanding, study for understanding, listen for understanding. Take things apart, put them back together, apply, observe. When you know how it works, its a lot easier to remember, rather than abstruse information.
As a Registered Acupuncturist, I was trained in TCM. Actually, I am not thinking after a couple of years reading Maciocia’s work as well as now being exposed to CCM by a friend of mine…what I learned almost seems even more primitive. Almost a, how to you say, barefoot approach. It seems that perhaps compared to many other TCM education centres (while I am extremely happy with what I did learn), I/We may have got a more stripped down version of the communist/Confucian model being taught in China.
It is for this reason that I am grateful for your podcasts and posts. It has made me look deeply at what I do in a day, what I’m trying to achieve and where I’d like to go with myself and my practice.
Keep up the good work. Don’t worry about rambling (I know you say you’re critical on yourself - but you don’t have to apologize for it!), you’re hitting the nail on the head all of the time. I especially enjoy the interviews.
All the best,
Kenton
Did you ever get that interview with Dr. Versluys?
Not yet - interviewing him this Tuesday. I’ll try to get it out by Wednesday but we’ll have to see how it goes. I’m also going to do my best to get back on the weekly podcast bandwagon!
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