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.
TCM Congress in Rothenburg is Largest in Western World
In the medieval town of Rothenburg, deep set within the Bavarian countryside in Southern Germany, the TCM Kongress Rothenburg each year draws around 1.200 participants from more than 40 different countries to attend the biggest TCM conference in the Western world.
From May 12-16, 2015, the 46th Annual TCM Kongress Rothenburg with its main topics "TCM Adjuvant Therapies in Oncology, Musculoskeletal Disorders, Sun Si Miao: Physician and Philosopher," will present a various set of around 200 workshop and lectures. Some lecturers you can expect are Young Wei-Chieh, David Euler, Radha Thambirajah, Lillian Pearl Bridges, Yair Maimon, Paul Unschuld, Sabine Wilms, Mazin Al-Khafaji, Hung-Rong Yen and many more.
Next to the full day lectures, there are also theme days, where various experts cover a specific overall topic such as fertility, paediatrics, dietetics, self-cultivation and TCM-Science. A highlight is the "Theme Day TCM-Science," as it's especially designed to create a bridge between TCM and Western scientific research.
The TCM conference in Rothenburg appeals to beginners as well as to advanced students of Chinese Medicine, stimulating their enthusiasm to deepen their knowledge. As far as the speakers are concerned, they can find one of those rare opportunities to get in touch with other colleagues and to exchange ideas at a high level. As the saying goes: the study of Chinese Medicine will never come to an end.
Rothenburg gives the opportunity to personally meet the teachers whose books we have studied or are still studying and to talk to them. In the same way, those pioneers in the West who established Chinese medicine are very important to us, because they help us to identify and appreciate our roots as therapists.
A major concern of our conference is to present in detail the different schools of Chinese Medicine (e.g. TCM, the French school, Professor Worsley, different oriental family styles, the school of Stems and Branches, Daoist medicine, etc.) without any dogmatism. From our point of view, a dogmatic and excluding position would be contradictory to the principles of Chinese Medicine. We would like to discuss subjects which are interesting to therapists in Germany, Europe, as well as in China and the U.S. The continued analysis of these subjects contributes to an increased solidarity amongst all practitioners. Chinese Medicine has become very popular in recent years. By trying to get the highest possible quality of lectures and seminars, we want to make our contribution to its steady and consistent development.
Besides the highly charged intellectual courses, there are ample opportunities to strengthen political and personal ties. It is a meeting point of TCM school leaders, presidents from TCM societies, TCM journalists and many other TCM experts. At the TCM Kongress Rothenburg, you truly feel that you are not alone.
As you might expect, a gathering of so many inspired people from all over the world creates an extraordinary atmosphere. There exist a lot of opportunities to talk to lecturers you always wanted to encounter, make new acquaintances, refresh old ties and catch this spark which makes the TCM Kongress Rothenburg so special.
For more information and to have an extensive overview of the program, please visit www.tcm-kongress.de/en/index.htm.