George in the Clinic

This is George.

He's studying the TCM course in the year below me. He's always great value and has an idea about everything. Being from China he's got some experience of how TCM works out there too. Once he showed me a scar on on his back at Bladder 13. This is where (in China) they made a cut and placed a small piece of chicken's gut in the incision when he was a child. It's a treatment for Asthma. True story.

Frequently Asked Questions about Studying Traditional Chinese Medicine at UTS

FAQs studying TCM at UTS:

Do you have to know/speak Chinese (Mandarin) to study?

No. The UTS TCM course is in English and there are numerous texts in English too.

You are not Chinese, why are you studying this?

Yes and because I appreciate it and I don’t have to be Chinese to understand and practice this!

Are your teachers Chinese (read: Your subject is Chinese, your teachers should be Chinese)?

Some. Some are Chinese and some are Anglo Saxon and some are from other nationalities!

Do you meditate?

Yes, and not just while watching TV.

They do that at UTS, how long???

Yes, 16 years. The course started at UTS in 1994 and was established from an independent college called Acupuncture Colleges (Australia), that had been running for 25 year previously to that.

How did you get interested in TCM?

I personally have had TCM treatments that helped me. Before that I had studied yoga and was teaching yoga and I had established an interest in Eastern philosophies. From all that I found out about the course and decided to go for it!

What is your experience of studying TCM at UTS?

I love it and hate it! It’s the hardest thing I have ever done. However I get a lot of enjoyment and satisfaction from it and helping people is what motivates me!

Why are you studying at UTS and not…China, Western Sydney etc?

I wanted to study somewhere close to home and that was it at the time of enrolment!

Should I enroll right after HSC?

You have to do what feels right. Balance all the things you want and need and ask yourself: do I want to be poor for 4 years in a row and possibly longer!?

What age range attends, is everybody younger than you?

Any and no! The interesting thing about UTS TCM is the broad range of ages on the course. It includes straight from school leavers who may not even be 18 yet all the way up to fifty year olds. It encompasses so many different situations of people from single mums, family people, working people, people living at home still, non working and so on. There are definitely some western medicine types in my year: a few nurses, one doctor (well not a real doctor, but a dentist…) It’s very diverse.

How do you find the lecturers and the teaching standard in UTS?

It comes down to knowledge and personality on both sides and that is all a very individual reflection. As a whole the lecturers know a lot! They are in a world of TCM and they know all about it! Whether they answer your questions, well some do and some don’t! There are always the books…

What is the course structure?
Roughly it is one third Chinese medicine, one third western medicine and one third practical application.

How confident would students feel in their knowledge of their Chinese herbal medicine aspect?

It’s great to have herbs as part of the course. Some people get herbs straight away, for others it’s a slow process. And others couldn’t care less as they won’t be using them in practice. If someone is studying and they pass and they don’t even care, there is hope! I love herbs and I stick to it. It’s taken me a long time to understand the concepts and ideas though.

What do you think of learning TCM in English as opposed to learning in Chinese? What about studying of the classic texts? Are they available?

It’s fine. Ok. So you are dealing with a translation. These are done to a high standard and the ideas of TCM are well understood really. In the case of classic texts: in all probability the original was reworked and changed over the centuries anyway. I guess it’s cool to say you read the original yourself and then translated it yourself. There is a sense of getting close to the original information. That original information can be difficult to understand anyway though. Either way your developing, comparing and understanding information all the time.

When do you start getting practical experience....are there a good variety of cases students can see at UTS clinic?

At the start and yes. From first semester we observe treatments with the general public. Later we take case histories and do our own diagnosis and talk to the practitioner about how they will treat. In the fourth and final year we do internship clinic where we do needling and herbal prescriptions for the general public ourselves under practitioner observation. The patients that come in are many and varied!

Paediatric TCM Books

Reading up on Paediatric massage techniques as a friend of mine went to a weekend course recently and shared her notes with me. Also at one of the clinics I am attending ,as an observer, there is a five year old who is brought in by his parents for a weekly massage to help with his mental and physical development. I was reading, waiting for the next patient , when the Chinese practitioner showed me she had the same book of mine, but in Chinese. It was a cute moment...

Next video blog on the origins of TCM coming in days!! I have worked out some technicial stuff for a clearer picture too! Wow!!

Acupuncture Practice

More pics from level 12 acupuncture practice class. Thanks Noam, Tsering and others!

Chinese Medicine: Why Blog it?!

Hi
Here's my video blog dissecting Chinese Medicine! I decided to film down at the park near Double Bay library because it's so beautiful. I hope you like it. Any suggestions, ideas or comments feel free!

This video is dedicatd to the memory of Carol Rogers

Last exam for the semester

Last minute top ups
Exam cram
Took these shots from left to right through the exam door window

Alright! It's over!!Here's an update of the last exam. Took some before and after shots, and some pics through the window of the exam room door. If you look around on the desks there are coffees, box of tissues and a Bach Flower rescue remedy... Anyway it was a bit of pressure, as always, but it's all over now-phew.

Insight into External Clinic Hours

Hi CMA followers,

Believe it or not one more week until the end of semester exams! I've been reducing my stress by swimming and doing yoga and it's sort of working. I've also kept my motivation by being really practical and hands on with TCM by doing external clinic hours from the university clinic. I've been going to two great places: "Traditional Chinese Medicine Australia" in Bondi Junction run by Dr Liu
http://www.tcmaustralia.com.au/

and "The Acupuncture IVF Support Clinic" in Maroubra run by Jane Lyttleton
http://www.acupunctureivf.com.au/

Both are very different but I am learning so much that it is incredible! I didn't think external clinic hours would be so different from the UTS clinic but it is very informative and inspiring.
TCM Australia is run by a Chinese practitioner who owns two other clinics. He's very successful and his clinics are very clean with automatic tables, five rooms and hand movement sensor taps in the sinks in each room. Haha! He combines a lot of massage and acupuncture and is big on his herbs too. Overall it's a very smart set up and very professional. Even though I am the only one who speaks english there I get through learning a lot from observation and some interpretation through the receptionist. In my clinic I will definitely use massage as I think its a wonderful healing and diagnostic tool. I also think its great preparation for acupuncture too.

The Acupuncture IVF Support Clinic is also one of a small group of clinics that are very professional and successful. The clinic is next door to a Western medicine IVF clinic. So people come for acupuncture pre and post embryo transfer, for example, to help improve implantation rates. It's one area where science really has been utilised in testing acupuncture and its results. are very good. It's great to see.

It's inspiring to be a part of two successful clinics and to see the opportunities and possibilities that exist to help people especially in two very down to earth and caring places.

TCM UTS 3rd Year Week 2 !! Not for the squeemish!!

Madelaine demonstrating Sishencong or the four alarm points for the headJeff demonstrating everything
My needling practice-thanks Noam
Here's an example of bruising to the conception vessel points below the abdomen. I've seen that before on another woman. Maybe could be a common event, as a tender area...

Hi peeps,
Here's a my week in review. Mainly from our clinic 5 classes which are further acupuncture practice. This week we did the most amount of needling I have done in one session-maybe needled about 20 points each or more. W also did extra points to the normal ones we have to know and we also tried some free needling (needling without the use of a plastic guide tube) technique.

Here's a video of a friend of mine self needling Spleen 6 (above the ankle) vigorously and flicking the needle and so on... Ouch, but he seemed to not mind!

Bob Flaws Book Review

I've picked up some reading in the uni break to help me understand TCM more and I came across this book. It's by Bob Flaws and is called Before Completion. Bob Flaws is well known because he's to the point, easy to read and has a bit of experience. This is a book I would really recommend. It's just so plain and to the point about all the grey areas and weird areas of TCM that have been bothering me during my study. I would suggest it's helpful to people who have completed first year, due to all the TCM terms he uses in it. This collection of published essays all in one place is a really good, helpful and inspiring set of writings.

Health Science Exam looming

This is an inch of paper I have to know for an upcoming exam in a few days. Its a real pain in the ass to have a two week break then your final exam! The motivation has stopped. The good thing is without a million other subjects to go over you can actually focus and the huge pressure of other deadlines aren't there! Either way you got to do it. O crap looks like beach weather too!

TCM Study

Study, food, Lecture, Manual Therapies class.
Thanks Jes, Sarah, Lydia, Mark, Madelaine, Zoe, Jeff

Quick UTS TCM Lecturer Profile: Congxing Yang

Smiles turn to horror as an assignment is revisited...

Here’s a privileged glimpse into a tutorial and a snapshot look at one of the lecturers at UTS in action. Thanks Congxing.
Firstly the reason I took these pics is that I have always loved the documentary feel of a sequence of pictures of a person interacting, talking and expressing different parts of their personality. These pics are an attempt to capture that. But mostly they are smiling ones… Even more satisfying is that I was allowed to capture them in tutorial in the office of the individual. So there’s a bit of flavour there.
Congxing Yang, everybody calls him Cong which is pronounced “Chong”, is our main lecturer for Chinese Herbal Formulas 1. Herbal formulas are a nightmarish dip into the Chinese language, in depth reasoning of TCM diagnostic theories (mind bending) and massive amounts of recall of individual Chinese herbs and also of herbs mixed up in different groupings-even more confusing!
Anyway Cong put on a wild fire tutorial at 12 today. That’s lunch time isn’t?? Anyway the exam is tomorrow and he provided a window of opportunity to stretch out some last minute ideas and fill in a few more gaps. You know that’s pretty cool, shows a lot of passion for the subject and demonstrates heaps of patience too. I think the main thing you can see from these pics is Cong’s sense of humour. So dedication and a sense of humour. Rare, rare, rare! Thanks Cong!

First week Spring Semester

More people in a row. This massage picture taken during a 10 minute break in our herbs tutorial. Thanks Nic Hi Blogs, This semester is another busy one. Our Clinic studies will include electro acupuncture, so will keep you updated on that.

We cover herbal formulas which is a very daunting analysis of specific combinations of herbs for specific reasons. Interesting though as there seems to be justification for all the combinations using TCM theory and we have a great lecturer for that subject too. Hours in the clinic with the general public and our final Western Science segment which covers a lot of nutrition information. Finally we are continuing with our Chinese Diagnosis concepts. That's the update.