Subhuti Dharmananda has been a field leader in Chinese Medicine since the the time of it’s inception here in America. Dharmanda runs the Institute for Traditional Medicine in Portland Oregon and oversees two clinics that treat a large number of patients.  His organization also engages in a variety of educational and charitable projects related to traditional medicine. A frequent contributor to the International Journal of Oriental Medicine, the Oriental Medicine Journal, the Chinese Medicine Times and the Protocol Journal of Botanical Medicine as well as online journals like JCrows.com, HIV Resources Homepage and the San Francisco Medical Society Homepage.  Dharmananda has also spoken  at conferences of Oriental and alternative medicine including the Pacific Symposium, Herbs and AIDS Conference and the California Acupuncture Association.He has exerted a significant influence upon the practice of Oriental Medicine through his monographs, clinical studies and training programs.Some of Subhuti’s books and essays  include:

• Natural Healing With Herbs editor with Humbart Santillo 1985
• Tibetan Medicine: A lesson for us all Update on Herbs 1985
• Chinese Herbs for Optimum Health 1986
• Chinese Herbology 1986
• Frontiers of Chinese Herb Research 1987
• Chinese Herbal Therapies for immune disorders 1988
• Pearls from the Golden Cabinet: The Practitioner’s Guide to the Use of Chinese Herbs and Traditional Formulas 1988
• Prescriptions on Silk and Paper: The history and development of Chinese patent medicines 1989
• Kang Wen “Defeat the epidemic”: The role of Chinese herbal medicine in the defeat of the AIDS epidemic 1989
• The Golden Mirror of Chinese Medicine 1992
• Foundations of Chinese Herb Prescribing 1992
• Chinese Herbology: a Professional Training Program 1992
• The Key Link: A detailed analysis of an epidemic disdease 1994
• A Bag of Pearls 2000 2000

I had the opportunity to Interview him about a few subjects.  Enjoy

Question: Do you feel that Chinese Medicine is adequately integrated with the current medical system in the United States?

Answer: For the most part, it is.  Chinese medicine is a complete medical field in itself, so that it is usually studied by a person who is going to spend the time learning its basis and how to apply it properly.  Modern medicine is also a complete medical field, much more complicated than Chinese medicine, and similarly requires intensive study to understand its basis and application.  Generally speaking, it would be asking too much for any one individual to know both fields very well.  Thus, the way to integrate the two medicines, in the U.S., is for patients to be able to freely work with both kinds of medical system.  Where we tend to run into problems is that doctors are concerned about the impact of Chinese herbs (not so much worried about acupuncture), and Chinese medicine practitioners often have an incorrect understanding of modern medicine.  As a result, the practitioners on both sides of the patient may be unnecessarily interfering with a beneficial integration that occurs.  It is the patient, more than the doctors, that integrates the two types of medicine.  The person who needs healing has to be able to properly assess when modern medicine needs to be used, when Chinese medicine can be of help, and how to manage using both of these along with personal health endeavors, such as exercise, good diet, stress reduction, and community activities. When doctors unnecessarily disparage the other practitioners, then this confuses the patient. However, Chinese medicine practitioners should be aware that if they dabble in non-TCM alternative medicines, they open themselves up to legitimate criticism and when medical doctors fail to consider the potential benefits of natural health care, they open themselves up to being marginalized rather than brought into the healing approach of the patient.

The “current medical system” is a conglomeration of health care practices.  We have the standard of care in modern medicine, but we also have experimental and aggressive therapies offered at specialty hospitals.  We have Chinese medicine (in most states), chiropractic, massage, naturopathic medicine (in a few states), some small amounts ofAyurvedic medicine, and other traditional medicine systems.  There is the entire range of “over the counter” remedies that people select on their own or with some advice, including the OTC drugs, all kinds of nutritional supplements, and other dietary and herbal supplements.  There are the self-healing techniques that are taught such as yoga, taiji, qigong, biofeedback, and various specialty exercises for particular physical problems.  Numerous dietary recommendations are made to help people conquer disease and stay healthy.  There are various kinds of spiritual and religious approaches to healing.  All of these and more comprise our current medical system.  As mentioned previously, the integration occurs in the individual, rather than the practitioner or the clinic.  Of course, it is of great convenience if one clinical facility offers many approaches to healing, and, in fact this model already exists in our hospitals.  You will find there all kinds of medical specialists, dieticians, physical therapists, nurses, physician assistants, a pharmacy, and often a chaplain.  In some hospitals now you can find (at least at times) an acupuncturist; perhaps in the future there will be more of them. Also, if you go to an acupuncturist office, you are likely, especially in our larger cities, to find in the same office a chiropractor, massage therapist, and/or other kind of health care provider. One of the things that happens in these facilities is a practitioner may advise a patient to see another type of practitioner.  A surgeon may suggest a physical therapist; an internist might suggest a dietician; an acupuncturist may suggest a chiropractor, and so on.  It is not necessary that they all work in the same building; that is just a matter of convenience. Practitioners of non-standard medicine owe it to the community to be educated sufficiently to be respected for their knowledge so that they can easily receive referrals.  A practitioner who says that “drugs are poison” or “doctors don’t know what they are doing,” or simply proclaims cures for the diseases medical doctors can’t treat aren’t going to get recommendations.  Nor, I would say, are practitioners who claim that AIDS is due to a blockage of qi circulation.  It is not a matter of holding back any truth, it is a matter of having a deep perspective and appreciating both the benefits and limitations of any medical approach.

Question: What conditions must be met to ensure harmonious and proper integration of Eastern and Western Medicine in the years to come?

Answer: Patients must be better informed about what different medical approaches can accomplish.  I often see that acupuncturists will focus on what acupuncture points or what herbs to give to a patient, but won’t see that the patient really needs to do something else as the primary therapy: maybe exercise, maybe some stress-reduction approach, and maybe some medical intervention.  The patient does not get from this practitioner a holistic approach, but a TCM remedies approach.  Similarly, if a medical doctor only offers surgery or drugs, but not the other components of healing, then the patient is left without adequate knowledge of how best to proceed.  But, we can’t expect every practitioner to be familiar with all the options, and how they might best be used.  For that purpose, it is helpful to have summaries of approaches to healing.  People can now find these easily by internet searches.  Lots of medical sites explain the nature of the disease and the available treatments and for this latter they may list acupuncture, Chinese herbs, and all kinds of natural and alternative therapies.  The difficulty, however, is that these are often presented solely for the sake of being “complete” but not giving sufficient assessment of these options.  Ultimately, we’d like to be able to offer that. Unfortunately, to assess the potential of a natural therapy to be of help requires some kind of viable evaluation, which is quite difficult.  Many of the reports of natural therapy studies are conveyed without critical analysis of the study method, data analysis, and reporting.  The answer then, I believe, is that each medical field must strive to constantly improve what it is offering, do its best to evaluate the effects, and strive to honestly portray the results in anything that is presented to the public.  The requirement is an ethical approach rather than a promotional approach.