International Council of Medical Acupuncture and Related Techniques, ICMART

A few and brief thoughts on the evolution of some aspects of medicine in Taiwan in the past decades

Baron Beyens, MD,

Secretary General,

Brussels, 2008

The first time I arrived in Taiwan during the winter of 1970. My aim was to improve my knowledge in the theory and practice of acupuncture. The teaching

and practicing of medicine was divided in several areas, and what I learned was through hearsay and conversations.

I did not conduct any specific survey as it was not my purpose.

However a general picture of the situation slowly imposed itself upon me.

There were hospitals where western medicine was practiced. The doctors did their best with what they had, antiquated equipments and sometimes shortage of drugs. But it was out of the question to enter one of these hospitals and ask for the department of Chinese medicine or the department of acupuncture. Not only did they not exist, but the question would have been dismissed as irrelevant, out of place and referring to backward practices which had no more any place in modern times. The same situation existed then in Hong Kong, where I had lived for two years before coming to Taiwan.

In most of the country TCM and/or acupuncture were taught through the system of knowledge transmission from master to disciple (with a ceremony in front of the altar of ancestors, as I experienced with Dr. Wu Weiping) or just as private training from teacher to student. This last system provided me with the best teacher I had, Professor Huang Weisan.During my stay with Dr. Wu Weiping in Taiwan at that time, I met many of his students, who had learned with him for months or years and had gone back to their town or village to practice. So of the old systemstill existed, although the government was trying to slowly and gradually regulate the status of the practitioners. But it was difficult and even unwise to simply eradicate the old system and impose a new order.

There was on the other hand in the China Medical University in Taichung, simultaneous teaching of Western Medicine and Chinese Medicine. Professor Huang Weisan was responsible for teaching acupuncture, and I still have his class manuals. But I don’t know what simultaneous ment exactly nor how many courses they had in common at that time. In those days I was more interested in acupuncture than in TCM in general and in prescribing Chinese drugs. I found however the idea interesting and innovative.

I have been back to Taiwan around fifteen times or more since that time and have witnessed so many changes. Departments of Acupuncture appeared in hospitals (like in the Taipei Veterans General Hospital), also departments of TCM (like in the Taipei Municipal Hoping Hospital). I brought several times groups of our medical doctors whowere studying acupuncture in Belgium, and they had the opportunity to visit the departments, to have lectures on various topics and discuss with some of the teachers. It seemed that the practice of Chinese medicine and acupuncture was slowly being organized.

Four years ago I visited the China Medical University in Taichung, and this year I was invited to participate in the same University in a symposium on Internationalization and Globalization of Chinese medicine and acupuncture. I had the opportunity to talk with some of the students of TCM, and I was very pleased to hear that they had most courses in common with the students in western medicine, sitting in the same auditory and listening to the same teachers. Of course both groups had also different courses like surgery for one group or prescription of Chinese formulas for the other. Once they had graduated in one of the two disciplines, the students could, and often did, continue studying in the other branch, creating by there a new class of practitioners well versed in both medicines.

During this seminar I listened to many interesting lectures on quality control, on the study of Taiwan’s botanical diversity regarding medicinal drugs, on the government policies regarding TCM, on the importance of evidence based approach, and on clinical research evaluating the effects of TCM treatments using the modern scientific methodologies. I wasimpressed by the quality of the organization, the friendliness of the hospitality (as always in Taiwan), the attentiveness to our wishes. I only staid for two days in this meeting but I marveled at the changes since the first time I set foot on Keelung so many years ago!

At the same time, in the National Taipei Hospital in Taipei, a hospital of western medicine with a Center of TCM, two weeks of intensive courses in TCM and acupuncture were organized freely for a group of foreign western doctors. Three of my Belgian colleagues or students participated in this course and they were very pleased, as well as grateful for the efforts made by everybody to make their stay easy and comfortable.

I like the idea of creating bridges between the two medicines, of using the techniques of one to evaluate the other, of integrating both sets of knowledge in a constructive and efficient system, where the patients finally can get the best of to worlds.

There are still works ahead. For example, how to choose and extract from the huge bulk of TCM what can be useful to the doctors trained in western medicine in their own country, and how to put aside what is no more necessary because western medicine has already fairly good responses in this or that pathological situation. Western doctors, in their vast majority, will not have the time, the patience, the financial possibilities to fullylearn TCM, but many of them should and could be made aware, in orientated and adapted courses, of the very real and useful possibilities of Chinese medicine as a complement to western treatments. Of course acupuncture has already reached most countries in which it is practiced, but the prescription of Chinese drugs is meeting with many difficulties, not to mention the legal aspects and the regulations in some parts of the world (like in the European Union).

Random thoughts from a observer of the great changes in Taiwan medical panorama, in which doctors of both training are looking forward and together for improvement, integration and more efficiency.

Brussels, October 17, 2008

Figure legend

Fig. 1

It was taken in 1969 and represented the “Hospital” of Professor Wu Wei-Ping, actually was with just a private consultation clinic where he treated his patients.

Fig. 2

Nearly 40 years later in 2008, here is the photo of the façade of the Taipei City Hospital, branch of Chinese Medicine. What a difference and what an improvement!

Fig. 3

Dr. Beyens was invited to give a lecture in the Taipei City Hospital in Nov. 2008.