I did it! I finally made the 13 hour trip and was on the approach to Hangzhou Airport. Dazed from lack of sleep and excitement, I was looking down on what seemed like hundreds of “Sticklebrick” buildings.
After meeting the rest of the study group, a quick visit to a nearby Taoist temple and a delicious bowl of peanut noodles, I began a very restless night (after consuming too much green tea)!
Then I began my first day as an intern at Zhejiang Provincial Hospital of TCM. What a privilege! The group were assigned to different doctors each morning and afternoon. It was fascinating and awe inspiring to see the multitude of patients being helped to recover through acupuncture, herbs, cupping and moxibustion. From stroke and cancer patients, to facial paralysis, back pain, fertility and weight loss. It was amazing to see the different techniques and approaches from each doctor.
The air thick with moxa, the outpatients acupuncture department is open from 8:00am until 5:00pm, it’s multi-bed cubicles busy every day. In China, this is their medicine first and foremost, but the combination of taking the best of Western medicines and combining with TCM, is ensuring patients have the most comprehensive treatment and optimum chance of recovery and ongoing good health.
Patients were happily attending for treatment 3 times a week, and so I got to see how quickly their progress was being made.
I also began to learn more about the use of two Microsystems of acupuncture, abdominal acupuncture and scalp acupuncture. TCM research in China is continually evolving to test the efficacy of different techniques. It was brilliant to have two eminent professionals giving lectures on these subjects.
What a week of learning so far, I’d already used up a whole pen…so off to Carrefour next!
