"How's the clinic doing these days?"
At the dining table, Liu Mei started chatting.
"It's okay, at least it's not completely neglected," Lu Jiu replied.
"Your dad had dinner with the director of Jianghan Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine yesterday. I heard their Traditional Chinese Medicine department is undergoing reform. They're urgently hiring students majoring in Traditional Chinese Medicine, and if you have a practicing physician's certificate, you can be specially hired, and they'll help with your employment status," Liu Mei said.
Lu Jiu couldn't help but laugh, "Mom, haven't we already discussed this? Why do you still want me to go to the hospital?"
"I'm not saying you have to go now, just leaving you an option. Your dad and I discussed it; since you don't want to work in a big city's hospital, you should at least have a proper job in Jianghan, preferably with employment status. The clinic is free, but it's not very secure," Liu Mei explained.
Lu Jiu helplessly said, "Don't you believe I can earn two hundred thousand in a year?"
Liu Mei explained, "Confidence is good, but with the fee standards set by your grandpa, how many patients would you need to earn that amount? Plus, what if the economy slumps and rent goes up? Then all the money you earn will go to the landlord."
"You know how your dad's business has been these past few years—just breaking even is already lucky. We don't expect you to make big money, but it's better to play it safe. Besides, treating patients in a hospital allows you to help more people. Isn't that good for you?"
Lu Jiu shook his head, unwilling to argue with Liu Mei on this issue.
Yes, there are more patients in a hospital where his abilities can be put to greater use.
But Lu Jiu doesn't like it.
He doesn't like the hospital atmosphere!
It's not just about competition; the rules there make him feel very uncomfortable.
Take, for example, routine inpatient checks.
It's one thing for Western Medicine to do these, but Traditional Chinese Medicine also has to prescribe them.
Why?
Hospital regulations!
No matter who you are, if you're hospitalized, you must undergo routine checks, even if it's just a sprained ankle—you still have to do a blood test and so on.
The intention of these checks is good, to screen for other diseases so that one can intervene and treat early, preventing mild diseases from turning severe.
However, from a Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective, this screening is basically meaningless.
Because Traditional Chinese Medicine emphasizes diagnosing external symptoms to understand internal conditions, any symptoms of the Five Viscera would manifest externally.
Just like modern medicine's concept of palmar erythema—even non-Chinese Medicine practitioners know it indicates a liver problem. But why is it a liver issue? Western Medicine can't explain it and must conduct tests like blood tests and CT scans to conclude.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, a so-called palmar erythema actually means the liver is not storing blood.
Blood is red. If the liver isn't storing blood, the excess goes into the palms, making them particularly red.
Why is the liver not storing blood?
There's a buildup!
There's something accumulating in the liver, occupying the space meant for blood, hence the excess blood shows externally.
This is also a problem with the liver's dispersing function.
But sometimes, the issue with the liver's dispersing function doesn't lie with the liver itself.
Because the liver has two dispersal channels: one is the gallbladder, which receives bile secreted by the liver, and the other is the large intestine.
So, when treating the liver in Traditional Chinese Medicine, sometimes it's not about treating the liver entity itself but restoring its dispersal function by opening its two problematic channels.
When the path is clear, traffic flows, the liver's impurities have somewhere to go, and naturally, the blood returns to its original place.
But Western Medicine doesn't know this. If the liver has a problem, they treat the liver.
So, what's the significance of this check?
Lu Jiu, having seen too many such cases, didn't want to stay after obtaining his practicing physician's certificate after two years.
Many people say modern medicine is progressive; it's neither Western nor Chinese. Both belong to archaic medicine and should be eliminated.
Lu Jiu has heard this rhetoric countless times, as if branding both Traditional Chinese and Western medicine as ancient and outdated can erase Traditional Chinese Medicine's efficacy.
In fact, ancient Western medicine couldn't even be called medicine; its methods were crude, its theories backward, nowhere near the surgical precision of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Yes, you heard that right, Traditional Chinese Medicine has surgery. Or rather, Western medicine's predecessor was actually Traditional Chinese Medicine's surgery.
Many medical artifacts unearthed today have already confirmed that Traditional Chinese Medicine's surgical technology was quite mature as early as the Ming Dynasty.
Due to some historical reasons, these medical knowledge traveled abroad and returned as 'foreign children,' with others wielding new theories like anatomy, bacteriology, virology, etc., declaring "I'm the parent" to your face.
With technological advances, Western Medicine hitched this ride, rapidly becoming the world's mainstream medicine!
It's what many people mean by modern medicine, which upholds anatomy and other doctrines as classics!
It could be said, modern medicine is a product of Western Medicine + technological evolution, while Traditional Chinese Medicine always remained separate.
All hospitals now, essentially, are Western Medicine-dominant with Traditional Chinese Medicine as a supplement, even Traditional Chinese Medicine hospitals are like this, except for a few pure Traditional Chinese Medicine hospitals, which are pitifully scarce on a nationwide scale. All rules are set based on evidence-based medicine.
What is evidence-based medicine?
It's basically needing evidence, data. When patients come in, you need reports. Even if a disease isn't cured, there's something to prove it's not my fault. Even if some people want to sue the hospital, this can prevent legal disputes.
Yes, this greatly protects doctors so that failing to treat a patient doesn't ruin their entire career; otherwise, no one would want to study medicine.
Therefore, routine inpatient checks are mandatory, and you must pay the cost even if you don't want to.
But does preemptively setting patients as adversaries have room for improvement?
For instance, could mandatory checks be changed to optional ones?
Indeed, medical disputes are not uncommon now, and doctors' groups often have grievances they can't voice. They don't receive the testing money; they're working-class earning basic wages. But if you didn't perform the checks, and the patient later causes trouble, who bears the responsibility?
But in regions unreported by media, families impoverished by illness outnumber medical disputes. This group has become too widespread to be newsworthy unless they're sensational enough.
There was once a news story about a university student who accidentally hit someone with a bike. He voluntarily covered the medical expenses, but at the hospital, the doctor ordered over a thousand in tests for the victim. The student, enraged, took a knife and held the doctor accountable, demanding an explanation from the director why such excessive tests were needed for a bicycle accident. This incident even alarmed the local police.
What about Traditional Chinese Medicine?
Many aspects can't be evidenced.
For example, why does Chinese Medicine say the liver stores blood when many organs have blood upon dissection? Why insist the liver stores blood rather than the heart?
Or what about "left liver, right lung," when anatomically, the liver is clearly in the upper right abdomen?
If Traditional Chinese Medicine can't even determine basic locations, how can it talk about medicine?
This is like using tennis rules to question table tennis. Both are ball games, but in table tennis, you're told hitting the ball off the table is a foul!
The Traditional Chinese Medicine concept of left liver, right lung isn't about physical organs but their qi.
The liver belongs to wood, on the left, symbolizing east, governing rise. The lung belongs to metal, on the right, symbolizing west, governing descent.
Left liver, right lung actually refers to rising on the left and descending on the right, describing the functional characteristics of the two organs.
Just as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, the body's qi mirrors nature.
The underlying logic of Traditional Chinese Medicine, essentially the "Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor," was derived from ancient observations of heaven and earth and then combined with human characteristics, summarizing a user's manual for the human body. It discusses how a healthy person falls ill.
Western Medicine fundamentally studies in laboratories, focusing narrowly and from a micro perspective.
Using micro-world rules to constrain ideas derived from the macro-world seems somewhat inappropriate.
That's why, working in many formal hospitals, if you sincerely care about patients, Chinese Medicine often feels awkward.
Perhaps, over time, one might adapt.
But Lu Jiu cannot!
The Chinese Medicine he loves isn't a cold, unfeeling science.