Traditional Chinese Medicine in the United States by Wu Emily S.;

Author:Wu, Emily S.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

A talented acupuncturist who specializes in cardiology, Dr. Yuan became the chief physician at a prestigious hospital in Shanghai when he was only thirty years old. In 1997, his wife, a genetic scientist, found a job in the Bay Area. The couple, with their toddler son in tow, immigrated to America. It was a time when the near-complete Human Genome Project was the talk of the world, and the field of genetic science was on the rise. Mrs. Yuan loved her job. She found her job both challenging and rewarding, and for the first few years they were in the Bay Area, she was the main breadwinner of the family.

In those early years, Dr. Yuan’s Chinese friends and students often wondered how he managed emotionally. After all, he gave up his highly respected position and promising career in China to support his wife’s career. Here he found himself struggling with the English language and fast becoming the homemaker of the family, cooking meals and caring for their young son while his wife worked overtime. He was also teaching at the local TCM schools part-time for the meager $25 hourly wage. Worst of all, he wanted to practice clinically, but found himself, both financially and mentally, completely unprepared to set up and operate a private practice.

In China, Dr. Yuan knew he was a skillful doctor; all he had to focus on was to treat the patients who came in, and they flowed in nonstop. It never occurred to him that he would one day have to worry about money or how to run a business. He was surprised and frustrated by the tedious errands and social networking unavoidable in a small private practice in America. When he first started his own business, he often sat in the tiny yet empty clinic wondering how he could get the patients to come to him. Finally he gathered up enough courage to visit all the other businesses in the complex and introduce himself to them. That was the first time Dr. Yuan had to make himself socialize with others rather than having others come to him. Highly respected by his students at the TCM school, Dr. Yuan also gets referrals from his students and through word of mouth in the grapevine of the local Chinese community.

After years of running a relatively successful clinic, Dr. Yuan still resists the concept of running a business:

I never had to think about business. People who study medicine graduate and get sent to places that need them, and you just do your doctoring. The relationship between the doctor and the patient is strictly a clinical relationship, and you do not worry about other aspects of the patients. Business and money had very little to do with me. The rest is whether your [clinical] skills meet the demands, otherwise you don’t have to worry. Here it is completely different. Here I have to depend on myself. I have to be in charge of money and business. It’s completely different.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.