 Now for those of you that don't know me, the way I actually got into traditional Chinese medicine or classical Chinese medicine was essentially through illness of my own. So I've struggled with digestive problems since I was a kid. It's something that runs in the maternal side of my family and it's something that kind of evades diagnosis like a Crohn's disease or an IBS, although what the last Western physician I saw diagnosed me as was IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome. But in this video, I want to share my experience finding a good Chinese medicine doctor who knew what they were doing because I'd seen to this day about 15 and there's only three that had gotten me results that made me know that Chinese medicine actually works. So it's obviously not that simple to find a great practitioner. Hey guys, I'm Alex Hine, author of the book Master of the Day, Current Doctoral Student in Traditional or Classical Chinese Medicine. Now, I've also included here a free download on how to add 10 years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine. It's the first link in the description box there below. It's going to give you this one page printout, this cheat sheet, for exactly what I recommend a few practices are that you do. So those are in the description box there below the first link. Now my first opinion in regard to how do you find a great practitioner is purely based on reputation. I mean, for me, I decided to stay in the US because the schools in China really are not very good, but you're learning the methodological quality, the quality of the education. I've had multiple friends go there who actually regretted going to China and my original options were to go back to China, which was super cheap because I spoke and I read Chinese or just to stay into the US or find a better school in the US. And for me, the school that I chose is what I personally believe to be the best in the world for what I want to learn. But ultimately, the school where they were educated, what languages they speak really means nothing because one would think that you need to find someone from the mainland, from China or from Taiwan to know the real Chinese medicine. But it's just not true because anyone trained in Chinese medicine now has learned the modernized TCM, which is like a watered down 1950s cookbook of recipes, which is why so often modern TCM doesn't work. So you really have to find a person with that direct experience, the clinical experience, some kind of lineage of teaching from a teacher or practitioner or someone that is hungry to they themselves become the best because they were frustrated with the results they got at the start. So it's really important to go off of personal recommendations. As the person, did they get someone you know results? How does that person that's referring you speak about the person? What is the reputation of that person in the community you're in? Do they have glowing reviews on the internet? You know, all of these things are so crucial to finding a Chinese medicine practitioner because even though our education is standardized on some levels, the quality control, in my opinion, is very poor. In terms of you go to a bad MD, MD, and they will still get you results that may may not be in your best interest in the long run and your well being, but you know you're going to get results. I cannot confidently say that about most people in my field. The second thing I would say, and again, this is my personal opinion, this is not the, you know, the profession's opinion is does the person really practice Chinese medicine? Because what you very often see is a person who does acupuncture and then they throw in the classic Western cocktail of like a multivitamin vitamin C, fish oil, turmeric, these very generic substitutions and advice. And it's not that there's anything wrong with that or that that's not Chinese medicine. But this to me suggests that the person may not really know how to use herbs properly. And so that brings me to my third point is how well does the person know herbal formulas? Because this is a very difficult skill set to learn and it requires a lot of training. And it's not easy to know what formulas to give and how to modify them based on the patient and a huge percentage of modern practitioners don't know herbal formulas. Therefore, that's why they will give vitamin C, fish oil, you know, very generic things you could give to everyone, which probably have a very marginal benefit or maybe negligible. So the ability to do great good is probably very low. The ability to do great harm is probably very low. It's a safe bet, but it's probably not going to dramatically change the course of a patient's illness because it's very generic. It's not specified. And traditional Chinese medical formulas are like surgical precision. They're like sniper bullets when properly prescribed and the results they get. So for me, there were only three practitioners out of almost 15 I'd seen that maybe realized that, whoa, like this actually works and works crazy. Well, can work crazy fast as in 10 minutes after getting acupuncture or two days after getting herbs, even for a chronic illness. And that's kind of scary because it was only two or three people out of 15 that I saw that could get those results. So that is my own personal opinion on if you're looking for a practitioner, look for results, look for referrals, look for how well they know herbal formulas and they're not just dishing out generic advice. And then essentially it's like any field. The best usually are the best because they've done the hard work to become the best and the people around them that know their character well can often provide a lot of insights into that person and how good they are. So again, don't forget I've included a free download there below on how to add 10 years to your life with traditional or classical Chinese medicine. You can also check out my last two videos right here and right here.