TCTCM Looks Toward East
On Friday, May 21, 2010, President Bernard Li of Fu Jen Catholic University of Taiwan, Republic of China, signed a sister school agreement with the Texas College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCTCM), in Austin, Texas. Fu Jen University is but the latest institution to enter into such an agreement with TCTCM, with Meiho Institute of Technology in Taiwan, ROC (2003), and Xinjiang Medical University in the People's Republic of China (2007) also among TCTCM's sister schools.
The successful conclusion of the sister school arrangement with Fu Jen Catholic University, coming as it does during the 20th anniversary year of the first and oldest school of acupuncture in Texas, marks the beginning of a new era in the growth and development of Traditional Chinese Medicine education and scholarship in the West. The agreement with Fu Jen University continues and expands TCTCM's recognition world-wide as an exceptional educational institution, and opens the way for exchanges of faculty, staff, and students between the two schools.
Fu Jen University was founded in Beijing in 1925 and was the first university in China established by the Catholic Church. Reestablished in Taipei, Taiwan in the early 1960s, the university now boasts an enrollment of 26,000 students and offers 79 Master's and doctoral degree programs. Fu Jen University derives its name from a Confucian quote and strongly emphasizes community service. In addition to President Bernard Li, other Fu Jen University representatives traveling to Austin include the Academic Vice President, Dean of the Medical School and Dean of International Education.
Texas College of Traditional Chinese Medicine was founded in 1990. It is the first and oldest school of acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine in Texas. The college is accredited by the Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (ACAOM), the sole accreditor for programs and institutions of acupuncture and Oriental Medicine.
In other news at the Texas College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCTCM), on July 1, 2010, the school had the opportunity to host His Honor Hsu Tain-Tsar, mayor of Tainan City, Taiwan, Republic of China (ROC). Hsu has been a vigorous advocate and protector of traditional Chinese medicine during his three terms of service as a Senator in the ROC Legislature, and a champion of public health and wellness during his two recent terms as Mayor. He was given a tour of the college and its clinic. Mayor Hsu expressed his pleasure pleased to learn that humanity's longest continuously practiced system of health and healing had found a home in the Lone Star State, and was gratified to learn of the growth of interest and scholarship in the field here in the West.
Mayor Hsu is well-known for his innovative environmental initiatives, his far-sighted public-health measures, and his commitment to the protection and transmission of China's unique cultural legacy to the future of TCM. His Honor has overseen the growth and expansion of Tainan, which has helped lead the city into the forefront of the national and international stage. Mayor Hsu's efforts to integrate Tainan into the global community have set the model throughout the world for local government officials seeking to join the world community. The College is truly humbled to have been afforded the opportunity to meet and host so distinguished a statesman and leader, and is forever grateful for the efforts of Mayor Hsu and others of like mind to preserve, enhance and share the unique cultural and scientific legacy that is traditional Chinese medicine.
Chronic pain afflicts over 20% of the adult population. Sadly, most MDs have essentially no education in treating pain, beyond offering a few toxic medications. Then they tend to steer people with pain away from those health practitioners who are trained. This puts the acupuncture community on the front lines for addressing this epidemic.
When the body is going through a stressful event, the sympathetic system is activated. This activation will help the body with a life-threatening situation. If this state is activated for prolonged periods of time, it starts to consume energy. These traumatic events that generate stressors in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) will eventually become internalized.
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One of the things that makes acupuncture so difficult to measure is that the medicine actually does contain some esoteric aspects. There have been numerous studies that demonstrate the neurochemical reasoning behind why acupuncture points stimulate the autonomic nervous system to enact change However, not all the benefits of TCM can easily be measured by randomized, controlled trials. But does that make them fundamentally and definitively untrue?
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