Third Clinic Shift

I just got out of my clinic shift on this chilly beautiful Saturday afternoon.

I am really enjoying myself at school. The classes are so fascinating and everything is just so hands on. Even though I'm only an "Observer" in clinic, I get to participate in tongue and pulse diagnosis during the patient intake process. Who would have known that there can be approximately 29 different tongue patterns for diagnosis in TCM?

So far the patients I've seen are pretty fascinating; especially the patient with fibroids. We've seen AMAZING results with her even after her first treatment. She's been back for 3 visits already and will be back next week. The last patient today was a heart felt one. She's near retirement age and seemingly has no family. She's been so stressed at work for the past two months due to a new boss and having the constant reminder that she may NOT have a job. She came in for a treatment for her allergies, but it was more serious than that. As my intern and I took her pulse, she started to cry. It made me all teary eyed too. I just wanted to give her a hug. My intern started patting and rubbing on her shoulder to comfort her and told her, "It's okay. You are here to let it all out. Don't hold it back." The patient was just so stressed out and emotional. We gave her tissues and I told her, "Don't worry. PB will take good care of you." She nodded and smiled.

Even though we are still students trying to learn this medicine to help our patients, I feel that we have made such huge impacts in our patients' lives. In the three short weeks that I've been in clinic, I've seen patients coming in feeling better and doing better and feeling that they have finally found answers to their personal needs and well being. We've even had a patient come in and told us that she's "firing" her doctor because we were able to treat her condition effectively in one treatment where her doctor still hasn't offered any effective treatment other than prescribing heavier dosages of pain medication.

The more I learn this medicine, the more I believe in this medicine in being the answer to a lot of medical conditions that western medicine has yet to effectively address; other than just simply increasing the medication to mask the condition.

Don't get me wrong. Western medicine is powerful in what it can do, but it's got to admit that it can't do it all. Medicating a patient to me is not an effective form of treatment to resolve a condition; especially if it causes more harm with side effects.

Alas, I know that there's a lot more to learn and the learning process will never end. I just pray that I can learn this medicine well, practice it well, and help many lives during my life time.

This is the treatment room my intern and I use to treat patients. I help set up the room before and after each patient and I also prepare the sterile work area for the needles.


I made my very FIRST granule herbal formula today under my intern's supervision. It was awesome combining an herbal formula with six single herbs to form a new formula that's customized for the patient's condition. That's the beauty of Chinese Medicine... it can be customized for each patient.