In this episode of Shoptalk, I share a story from my time living and studying medicine in Beijing in 2003. Craig Mitchell handed me a book on herbal medicine, and even though my Chinese was shaky back then, reading anything interesting about medicine was my way of pushing myself to improve.
When I opened Ten Key Formula Families in Chinese Medicine, I was convinced my Chinese was getting worse—the ideas were so different from anything I’d learned that I assumed I was misunderstanding it. Turns out, I understood perfectly. Dr. Huang Huang’s perspective was simply that fresh, that transformative. It changed the way I thought about herbs—and the way I used them.
I thought I’d know a lot more after 25 years in practice, and I’ve also learned so much that I never expected. Over time I’ve learned to say less in clinic and to listen more. It sounds easy; it’s not. It’s not easy because it is oh so easy for the helpful spirit in me to want to be of service and ‘give something’ to my patients. It’s taken a long time to realize that attempting to give something to a patient that they did not want or ask for was a burden to them, and a waste of time and breath for me.
Over time I discovered that getting still and seeing if I could understand my patients from their point of view, if I could connect with the kind of empathy that seeks first to understand, or if I could patiently wait for a patient to tell me what they actually needed, it seemed to help. It made diagnosis easier, and my treatments more precise.
Dr Huang has continued to develop his ideas and Eran Even did his Ph.D in China with Dr Huang. He’s a great resource for engaging the ideas of Dr Huang, and he’s got some great classes on formula families. You can find those over at www.chinesemedicineclassics.com.
Ten Key Formula Families in Chinese Medicine is available from Eastland Press
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