EASTERN MEETS WESTERN 1 Eastern Meets Western EASTERN MEETS WESTERN 2 2020 was a special year for the country, also it was a special time for me. Because I started my VIUM MSA program in fall 2020. Like we knew time flies, my first quarter has been completed. I would like to say those days to me were “Eastern meets Western, Tradition meets Modern, Natural philosophy meet significant evidence”. After the first three-month studies, I believed that my courses brought me a bigger view between eastern and western, not only about medicine, also about ancient history, scientific ideas, and theory which explained that where TCM comes from and what’s in the WM world today. I learned how to use the resources to discover and confirm the scientific evidence and became a higher-level professional acupuncturist to help more people. Additionally, my instructors have professional background and resources, that’s very helpful for my studies. Besides that, I got more confidence about acupuncture treatment as a complementary therapy that has confirmation and scientific evidence with the common disease. Also, I can see the potentiality of integrative medicine treatment for the future. What’s more, acupuncture as a positive additional therapy had demonstrated in many clinical trials. But on the other hand, we can saw the data power of acupuncture treatment in the research was low, although TCM has over 2,000 years of history. More importantly, I realized that acupuncture still has a long way to go. Encouraging more professionalism in the western medical field and eastern medical field can be work together to do more studies and researches will be very helpful for the world. Overall, this journey for me is not only about learning and found more possible in TCM, but also about working harder and discover more connections between TCM and western medicine. As a beginner, I wish I can do my best to build a better human healthy solution in the future. I believe EASTERN MEETS WESTERN eastern plus western medical care has a bright future and brings better life quality to the people and their families as well. 3
