Building Bridges of Integration for Traditional Chinese Medicine – Transformation: Spirit in Healing is a landmark educational forum on traditional Chinese medicine for Eastern and Western health-care professionals interested in exploring this medical system's growing role in integrative and complementary health care.
Body, mind, spirit and emotions. They are inextricably fused, and it is spirit that informs and energizes our physical self and psyche. To journey to the heart of healing necessitates an encounter with spirit. The path to transformation causes us, as Eastern or Western health-care professionals, to ask: What makes a patient truly whole? How can we incorporate spirit in healing to create harmony within and transform the lives and health of those we serve? How can we move beyond simply alleviating symptoms? Qi, or energy, plays a vital role in this transformative process.
Join us for our fifth year of exploring these provocative concepts from the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) perspective. Dialogue with firsthand TCM experts who have received in-depth training from some of China's most respected healing masters. Learn from today's dynamic integrative Eastern and Western medical professionals as they explore the roots of healing and health. Together we can transform contemporary health care.
The ultimate goal of Building Bridges for TCM is to expand health options and improve medical outcomes in the United States by educating CAM and conventional medical, health-care and research communities about traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). This includes all aspects of this time-honored system—its philosophical and theoretical underpinnings—as well as the full complement of modalities that TCM employs to prevent and address health problems. These modalities encompass acupuncture, acupressure, herbal therapy, Qigong, the prescription of foods for healing, and Chinese psychology.
A Time for Traditional Chinese Medicine
Traditional Chinese Medicine is one of the oldest holistic medical systems in the world. It has been practiced and studied by millions for more than 5,000 years. Hospitals and clinics throughout China have successfully integrated Western and traditional Chinese medicine to help patients heal from a wide range of conditions and diseases for more than half a century. Most importantly, TCM's ability to prevent problems before they affect the physical body offers significant advantages for today's major health-care problems. Learning about and experiencing Qi, the energy foundation of TCM, offers a way of re-seeing prevention, illness and disease.
According to a report from the Institute of Medicine, "Approximately half of all causes of mortality in the United States are linked to social and behavioral factors such as smoking, diet, alcohol use, sedentary life-style, and accidents. Yet less than five percent of the approximately $1 trillion spent annually on health care in the US is devoted to reducing risks posed by these preventable conditions. Behavioral and social interventions therefore offer great promise to reduce disease morbidity and mortality, but as yet their potential to improve the public's health has been relatively poorly tapped."
If there ever was an opportune time to integrate a comprehensive holistic medical system with thousands of years' experience in prevention and lifestyle modification...now is it! Given the immense physical, emotional, and financial toll of chronic conditions this country, we need to find a way to integrate the best of both medicines. Building Bridges for TCM 2006 equips health-care practitioners with the philosophical understanding and skills they need to understand TCM and the potential it holds for enhancing their work.