What I hope to achieve

I blog about my personal life elsewhere, so this blog here isn't really about personal growth or having somewhere to talk about having a bad day, or about having a good day (I have those).

Something really valuable is happening with medical blogs - people like The Cheerful Oncologist are posting wise things that remind me that alternative medicine doesn't have a monopoly on compassion. Others like Chronicles of a Medical Madhouse are much more of an adventure through bureacracy and overwork in the hospital system. Either way (and in between), there's a growth of information about medicine and the people who practice it. I want to be a part of that.

Also, I think there's a chance that I can be part of opening a dialogue between Chinese and Western medicine. It's a dialogue that's needed by both sides, but especially by patients.

Part of that dialogue means advocacy on issues like clinical trials - both the need for Chinese medics to lift their game in that area, and for Western medics to realize that the double-blind placebo is not always the best trial methodology. I'd like to be in a position to claim some credit when pragmatic trials take over from placebo trials. I believe that has to happen for both sides of medicine to improve their credibility.

I would like to think that Western medicine might add 'pattern diagnosis' to its repertoire, or at least to develop an appreciation of it and include in their protocols a point where patients are referred to pattern-based (as opposed to disease-based) therapist. Perhaps I can engender interest on the part of my Western medical colleagues.

And, inevitably, I will have weaknesses in my thinking, in my argument. I will be reminded that the Western medics know more than anyone else about how to save lives. And that will be useful for me too.