Specializing

I have long been a strong advocate of specializing. All my Chinese medical teachers in China advised me on this approach. Being a GP is the hardest "specialty" because you have to know everything about everything. Happily, I decided to specialize fairly quickly in my career (gynecology), about three years into practice. Specializing does two very important positive things:

1. You get very knowledgeable and good at treating a limited group of conditions in a fairly short period of time. You learn what you can and cannot treat, how long it'll take, and how much it'll cost the patient with what probability of success.

2. It sets you apart from the rest in terms of your advertising. You quickly become "the" person to see for your specialty in your area. When people advertise that they specialize in a list of 10-20 types of conditions, that's not specialization. That's general practice. Look at most Yellow Pages ads and that's what you'll see.

How to pick a specialty? That depends on what you are attracted to. Hopefully, you already have some inclination towards some particular part of Chinese medicine. If not, you maybe should do general practice for a while until you develop an interest. You don't want to devote years of your life to something you have no special interest in. However, you should also consider what your patient population's demographics are and who else is practicing in your locale. No sense in going head to head with someone else who specializes in this or that and has that market sewn up. Good specialties to consider are gynecology, pediatrics, sports medicine, rheumatology, dermatology, and geriatrics. Chinese medicine definitely has a lot to offer for all of these.

How to learn or develop a specialty? The best thing to do is to go to China for 1-3 months and study your specialty there. Figure $1K per month for tuition with translation. Then another $500-1K for room and board. Add the cheapest airfare you can find on top of that. Also read everything you can on your specialty in both Western medicine and Chinese medicine. It's best if you can read Chinese. In that case, there's a huge amount of literature about every specialty. However, even if you cannot do that, there's still lots of info out there. But reading Chinese will definitely set your off from 99% of everyone else, at least all the round-eyes. This is what's really going to make you a doctoral level practitioner. There's no substitute for having direct personal access to the primary source literature.

Good luck and best wishes.

Bob Flaws
Blue Poppy

All of the major Chinese medical colleges offer classes for Westerners. That means Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Heilongjiang, Tianjin, etc. At this point, they understand the concept of cash and carry. So you can tailor your own classes/clinic at most schools. However, don't pay them in full until you are sure you are getting what you want. Pay half up front and the other half half way through when you're satisfied with what you're getting. If you pay everything upfront, then you've given away any leverage to make changes.

As a for instance, write:

Dept. of External Affairs
Chengdu University of Tradtiional Chinese Medicine
Chengdu, Sichuan, PRC

or:

Dept. of External Affairs
Zhejiang College of Traditional Chinese Medicine
Hangzhou, Zhejiang, PRC

Even without street addresses, your letters will eventually get to them. Allow one month for a response. Tell them what you're interested in doing and ask if they can supply that.

You can also now go on-line and find training programs at various hospitals in China with English language websites.

The best is if one of your Chinese teachers from whatever school you went to can write you a letter of introduction to someone at the school they graduated from. You'll always get the best in China if you have a personal referral. In fact, the school you pick is far less important than any personal connection you have to the school. So ask some of your favorite Chinese teachers if they can help you put something together.

Good luck and best wishes.

Bob Flaws
Blue Poppy

There seems to be another option as well. How about working with someone who is already in North America who is already working in your specialty. It is too bad that there are not more mentorships out there, but if you go out of your way, you might be suprised.

You have the double benifit of them likely already speaking english, and them also having "adapted" that specialty to working in a western enviroment.

I have a 15-year-old who is very serious about becoming an acupuncturist and who is studying Mandarin. She hopes to travel to China in the next year or two and will probably major in biology and minor in Asian Studies in undergrad school. How did you learn Chinese? Tips most welcome! Thanks.

There are many ways to learn Chinese. Bobs book is great, as are paul unschulds (Learn to read Chinese) and Nigel Wisemans various language books. These books are useful for learning medical Chinese. I studied at school for a couple years and spent a year in China and still feel like i'm just beginning to break the surface. Totally immersing yourself in the culture is definitely the best and probably the quickest way.
Good Luck.