Visiting professor from China to share his knowledge of
traditional Chinese medicine with Saint Martin’s students
March 12, 2013
Lacey, Washington – Years before Dr. Heng Li became a medical
doctor and Traditional Chinese Medicine physician, he initially had
some doubts about TCM.
“I did not like TCM, in the beginning. I once thought it was
witch doctor’s stuff,” says Li, who recently arrived from the
Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (SHUTCM) to
spend five weeks as a visiting professor at Saint Martin’s
University.
“I
have an uncle, a top authority on acupuncture in China, who warned
me, ‘One day, you’re going to fall in love with Traditional Chinese
Medicine.’ And I did!” recalls Li, a fifth-generation TCM physician
within his family.
Li is assistant director and associate professor at Shanghai
University’s China Shanghai International Acupuncture and
Moxibustion Training Center. He is also chief doctor in the
Acupuncture and Tuina Department of the Municipal Clinic Hua Dong
Hospital. Li is sharing his knowledge and passion for Traditional
Chinese Medicine, a 2,000-year old discipline, with students
enrolled in the Saint Martin’s RN-to-BSN Nursing Program’s
introductory course, Traditional Chinese Medicine and Evidence-Based
Practice.
Li’s visit to Saint Martin’s is the result of the sister
university relationship the two schools have shared since 2008.
Students at SHUTCM are typically sent to Saint Martin’s for summer
cultural exchange activities, and Li is the second visiting
professor from SHUTCM to arrive on the Lacey campus.
“It is a great honor to have Dr. Li with us. This is a
culmination of years of cultural and academic exchange between the
two institutions,” said Josephine Yung, vice president of the Office
of International Programs and Development at Saint Martin’s.
“Dr. Li provides students with the insight, experience, and
wisdom of a traditional Chinese medicine doctor (TCM) who uses an
approach to health that is multifaceted and able to help individuals
achieve wellness,” says Louise Kaplan, director of the RN-to-BSN
program. “He is skilled at making complicated theories
understandable and brings to life the power of TCM.”
For Li, his stint as a guest lecturer is all part of his main
mission: to spread accurate information and knowledge about
Traditional Chinese Medicine to the Western world, and to more fully
integrate TCM with Western medicine. Today, Traditional Chinese
Medicine is practiced alongside Western medicine in clinics and
hospitals throughout China, and TCM has become a very common
practice in the United States.
Still, Westerners continue to hold numerous misconceptions about
TCM. Li attributes those misunderstandings, in part, to what he
describes as the “Americanization and Europeanization” of the TCM
approach.
“In China,” Li further explains, “Traditional Chinese Medicine
doctors are also M.D.s, medical doctors. We first treat a patient
just like an M.D. would. Then, following a consultation and an
examination, we use Traditional Chinese Medicine to treat their
problem.” In the West, many TCM practitioners are not medical
doctors, and TCM is not considered to be part of conventional
medicine but, rather, alternative and complementary medicine.
TCM practices include Tuina (pronounced “twee nah”), a type of
body massage, acupuncture, herbal therapy, dietary therapy, cupping
(applying a heated cup to the skin), moxibustion (burning and
applying a raw herb in conjunction with acupuncture), and Tai Ji and
Qi Gong mind-body therapies.
One significant difference between the two medical approaches, Li
says, is TCM is a more holistic-based medicine than Western
medicine. “We not only treat the body, but also the mind and the
soul.”
Another important difference, according to Li, is Traditional
Chinese Medicine places extensive emphasis on individualized
treatment. “Just like no two leaves of a tree are exactly alike, the
same is true of human beings,” Li says. “We consult with each
patient, look at them, examine them, gauge their constitution. In
Western medicine, however, the treatment is not so much
individualized as it is uniform. For example, the common cold is
treated exactly the same in all individuals.”
Li believes this emphasis on the individual makes for a “perfect
match” between Traditional Chinese Medicine and nursing. “TCM can be
transplanted very well into a nursing program because we share that
same core value of individualized attention.”
“Nurses are with their patients all the time, more than the
doctors. Nurses have a great opportunity to observe a patient as an
individual person, as we do in Traditional Chinese Medicine.” Along
with nursing students, other students enrolled in the introductory
course who are considering careers in the health professions will be
learning about TCM from Li.
In addition to serving as a guest lecturer, Li is assisting Saint
Martin’s in planning an exhibit about Traditional Chinese Medicine
the two universities are cosponsoring and which is scheduled to be
held July 18-20 on the Saint Martin’s campus and within the
surrounding community.
Saint Martin’s University is an independent four-year,
coeducational university located on a wooded campus of more than 300
acres in Lacey, Washington. Established in 1895 by the Catholic
Order of Saint Benedict, the University is one of 14 Benedictine
colleges and universities in the United States and Canada, and the
only one west of the Rocky Mountains. Saint Martin’s University
prepares students for successful lives through its 23 majors and
seven graduate programs spanning the liberal arts, business,
education, nursing and engineering. Saint Martin’s welcomes more
than 1,100 undergraduate students and 400 graduate students from
many ethnic and religious backgrounds to its Lacey campus, and 300
more undergraduate students to its extension campuses located at
Joint Base Lewis-McChord and Centralia College. Visit the Saint
Martin’s University website at
www.stmartin.edu.
For additional information:
Josephine Yung
Vice president, Office of International Programs and Development
360-438-4375;
jyung@stmartin.edu
Louise Kaplan
Director/Associate professor, Nursing Program
360-412-6129;
LKaplan@stmartin.edu
Meg Nugent Dwyer
Media relations manager
360-412-6126;
MDwyer@stmartin.edu