The complementary medical physician: a personal journey

Abstract

As a conventionally trained physician, I left medical school with an abiding interest in basic science and a degree in biochemistry. I initially pursued a career as a hospital physician, but in 1976 began to become interested in acupuncture. My interest culminated in a visit to China in 1977 when I attended a 3-month basic acupuncture course at the College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Nanjing. I certainly did not go to China 'believing in acupuncture', but was rather interested to see what acupuncture had to offer, and was keen to travel and to learn a new medical discipline that would allow me to develop some perspective in relation to my scientific conventional training. Much to my amazement, I found that the ideas I encountered allowed me to expand and develop my medical skills, creating a theoretical framework through which my intuitive understanding of illness and its development became firmly grounded in traditional Chinese philosophy. I also began to feel that many of the patients I treated benefited from acupuncture, although while in China I continued to remain sceptical about the political and social reasons that might underpin a patient's affirmation that my acupuncture really was helping him or her. While it was clear to me that at that time there was little basic science to underpin the clinical effects I was observing, I was able to suspend my role as a pure scientist in order to learn the clinical discipline of