 So, if you've sought out an acupuncturist, you might have heard the term traditional Chinese medicine, which is what acupuncturists are part of. But in reality, traditional Chinese medicine is anything but traditional. I know this sounds contradictory to some people. We hear how ancient it is, and we hear traditional in the word, so it seems logical. But in reality, it's really not that traditional. And I want to share why that is and a little bit about the history of this kind of modern traditional Chinese medicine. What's up you guys? Dr. Alex Hein, licensed acupuncturist and doctor of Chinese medicine. So before we jump into this video here today, there's two very important links right below. The first is if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine, you can contact my private practice right below this video here. And there's also a free download for you for daily rituals that can potentially help you add years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine. So again, those are right below this video. So why is traditional Chinese medicine not traditional? When you look at the history of Chinese medicine, and honestly, you see this even throughout science and throughout medicine in Western Europe, it was never one unified field or one unified profession. Typically, what you would see is different family lineages, different branches and schools of Chinese medicine. You have, for example, there'd be the Shanghan School, there'd be Wenbing practitioners later in the last few hundred years. Even within China, you see those variations culturally and dieterrally and herbally, the kind of herbs practitioners use. Maybe that was just due to what was regionally available. But typically what you see is these family lineages or individual lineages throughout the country. And so it never really was one unified profession. So really in the last hundred years, there was this push with the cultural revolution, and when China was really trying to modernize itself and be recognized as a credible, serious power, it was trying to get away with anything that was superstitious or not modern or not scientific. So it really put together this kind of TCM curriculum, this traditional Chinese medicine curriculum, which is really a hodgepodge of various practices, formulas, acupuncture approaches throughout Chinese medicine history into a way that effectively these barefoot doctors could use almost as like a manual, if there's damp heat and the person has urinary dysfunction and is burning, use these points and use this formula. And in reality, clinical medicine is a little bit more complicated than that and has to be a lot more specialized. But this very modern thing that we call traditional Chinese medicine is ironically anything but traditional. For example, when you take three famous formulas, I've just pulled these randomly that are name brand formulas. The first is Gui Zhitang, the second Sojun Zitang, and the third Yinchaosan. Gui Zhitang is stereotypically known as a formula for when someone is about to get an acute cold or fever. Sojun Zitang, more for let's just call it adjusted problems and Yinchaosan when someone's getting a, let's just say a cold with a sore throat, right, to extremely generalize it. It's called wind heat. These three formulas are from very different dynasties. Gui Zhitang from the Han dynasty in the Shanghan Lun text, around the year 200-250, closer to the time of Christ. Sojun Zitang, maybe around the year 1100. Maybe it showed up sooner, but at least in a book, roughly that area. And then Yinchaosan with the Wenbing fever school practitioners in the last 300 years or so. So around the year 200, around the year 1100, around the year 1800, 17, 1800. And these are all lumped into a modern traditional Chinese medicine curriculum as traditional Chinese medicine. But these span 2,000 years, and there is no context given for these formulas or where they come from, what they do, or why those individual physicians or that clinical approach was even used. So a lot of what we learn in school is a hodgepodge of random formulas from random times and random doctors, a few of their famous formulas and a few famous formulas from this doctor and a few famous formulas from this time period put into something that's traditional Chinese medicine. Now, the beautiful thing about this is that it is a very organized and systematic way that is a little bit closer to paint by numbers. It's easy to learn. It's biomedical. It's very linear. It lends itself easily to being protocol based, right? But real medicine is always more dynamic and more complicated than that. And there's that saying that after a year of practice of medicine, you look like all the patterns seem easy. But after 10 years of practice in medicine, you don't see any of those patterns in your patients. And this idea that cookbook medicine is not real medicine because in reality humans are far more complex than that. And to really achieve great clinical results, it has to be highly customized and highly specialized. So, you know, my particular mentors cautioned me against practicing in a traditional Chinese medicine way, saying that it was not that clinically effective, that it was a hodgepodge of various techniques and various formulas, that it was really trying to be biomedical, like conventional biomedicine, you know, juxtaposed to Chinese medicine. And that in general though, it was anything but traditional. So when it comes to this idea of traditional Chinese medicine, unfortunately, you know, what you learn in school is called traditional Chinese medicine, but it is not that traditional. It's very modern. It's very biomedical. It's very influenced by this push, the great leap forward in China, try to be taken seriously as a scientific discipline, you know, acupuncture in Chinese herbs, but it loses the heart and soul of Chinese medicine and the clinical efficacy, which is a problem. But I thought this would be something worth talking about because people have this idea of TCM being so ancient. And so incredible. And so this long lineage of doctors, but the way that it's taught in school, it really loses that heart and soul and the clinical power of it. But that's why the school I went to called it a classical Chinese medicine school. So just something food for thought, people are always wondering about the history of medicine and the history of Chinese medicine. So I thought I would share, again, if you want to reach me or contact my private practice, info is right below this video. And otherwise I will catch you in these two related videos over here.