"It doesn't matter whether a cat is black or white so long as it catches mice!" This sums up the attitude of many people currently involved in integrating Chinese and Western medicine. What is it about these people that has allowed them to put aside prejudices and broaden their vision?

Of those in Taiwan involved in combining Western and Chinese medicine, Julia J. Tsuei could very well be the most important. One of the characters in her name was chosen by her parents to commemorate the spirit of China's May Fourth Movement, which advocated learning the science and democracy of the West. (It is the character jiu, which includes the symbol for the number 9, because the May Fourth Movement is known in Chinese as the 5-4 Movement, and 5+4=9!) It is as if she has been destined from birth to play a role as a matchmaker between Western and Chinese medicine.

Dr. Lai Gi-ming: "If you want to jump into the mainstream, first you have to cultivate your own abilities and develop confidence and ambition.".

Back in the 1960s, the UN's World Health Organization, concerned about the burgeoning global population, sent teams of family medicine specialists around the world to encourage family planning. Dr. Tsuei, who started out in obstetrics and gynecology (Ob/Gyn) and also did work at the University of Pennsylvania on reproductive biology and population control, was one of the doctors involved.The challenge of knowledge

Embracing Western medical training and technology, she journeyed to Nigeria, the Philippines, Indonesia, and elsewhere. In these disadvantaged countries she was surprised to discover that "relying on existing indigenous medical traditions was the only way to economically and practically treat local people." She thus became interested in researching traditional medicine around the world. She adds: "When I was practicing medicine in Asia, I discovered that most Asian medical practices shared the same traditions as Chinese medicine, for example acupuncture, herbal remedies, and dietary remedies. So I became increasingly interested in Chinese traditional medicine."

By chance, in 1967 Tsuei met the famed Chinese medicine practitioner Cheng Man-ching in New York. She became Cheng's student and began studying the classic medical text The Yellow Emperor's Canon of Internal Medicine. In 1970, she returned to Taiwan to become the director of the Center for Women and Children at Veterans' General Hospital (VGH). At that time, she was cured of a long-standing ailment with only a single needle by Dr. Huang Der-min, who was a researcher in acupuncture attached to VGH. In fact at that time there was no established scientific explanation of acupuncture. It was a treatment that people "knew was effective, but didn't know why." Having seen its effectiveness in her own case, Tsuei says, "It was an intellectual challenge. I couldn't accept just saying 'it has no scientific basis.'" She became determined to research acupuncture.

Thereafter, Tsuei not only studied acupuncture with Dr. Huang, becoming a first-class practitioner, she also studied its principles. She wanted to understand it in a scientific way. She also began to apply acupuncture in Ob/Gyn, as a pain killer for women in labor. In 1974 and 1976 she delivered well-received papers on acupuncture-assisted deliveries at meetings of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. In that period she also worked in the Ob/Gyn department at the University of Hawaii Hospital. Interestingly, many men also heard of her acupuncture skills, and made appointments to see her in the Ob/Gyn clinic!

Dr. Sun An-ti: "It is a doctor's fundamental duty to help patients seek the best method of treatment, wherever it may be found. An intellectual should have an open mind.".

"When we see a patient, we cannot just look at their physical ailments. We must take care of their entire person, including their body, mind, and soul. We must restore their physical balance and peace of mind," says Tsuei. Modern medicine is overly specialized. One goes to a neurologist for headaches, to a podiatrist for one's feet, and so on. This can easily result in doctors overlooking the forest for the trees. The concept of holistic medicine, on the other hand, is more often seen in traditional medicine. Modern people would be well-advised to rethink their obsession with reductionism.Complete meld

The reason Chung Chieh went into research into Chinese medicine is because his father was a Chinese medicine practitioner. "However, when I was young I didn't identify with Chinese medicine at all. Having gone through the rigorous training at National Taiwan University Hospital and then worked at the country's leading medical center, Veterans' General Hospital, in fact at that time I saw Chinese medicine as unscientific, and held it somewhat in disdain," says Chung.

"Yet, after being in practice for a while, I felt increasingly frustrated and powerless, because I discovered that I was not omnipotent, and couldn't solve all the problems of my patients." Chung ultimately had to admit that modern medicine has its blind spots. He says that in order to find a way out of his predicament, he began to refer some of the patients he could not cure to his father. "In fact, at first I still had serious doubts, and wanted to test and challenge my father, a representative of Chinese medicine." Little did he expect that many patients would take a turn for the better, and some even be completely cured. This caused Chung to stop being so dogmatic, and he began to study Chinese medicine with his father.

After that, he transferred from the department of internal medicine to the acupuncture center at VGH. In 1989 the acupuncture center was restructured and became the center for the study of traditional medicine. At that time, Chung worked with Julia Tsuei to develop and design a system that utilized the Chinese theory of meridians and acupuncture points to make a computer diagnostic device to measure a patient's "Qin value."

In recent years, Chung's research has moved in the direction of strengthening resistance to illness. He is incorporating forms of treatment from the West such as homeopathy and nutrition studies, working at the most fundamental level-on ways to strengthen the human immune system. His research is applicable to both curative and preventative medicine. "Modern medicine is mostly chemical composites. Although these can kill viruses, they have harmful side effects," says Chung. By providing the human body with appropriate nutrition and energy, one can naturally promote good health and prevent illness.

Chung argues that at the current stage Chinese medicine can still not achieve true integration with Western medicine. It is still seen by Western medical professionals only as supplementary, as helping out where Western medicine has failed, or as a partial substitute. "Integration, properly understood, is not taking something from A to plug a hole in B, but is a complete melding together of the two traditions." This will require great deal of effort in the next century.The responsibility of the intellectual

These medical practitioners are not traditionalists with some nostalgic sense of mission to preserve the past. Rather, they are modern scientists, looking beyond their specialties for new health care resources. Sun An-ti, a dentist at National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH), is a case in point.

When seeing patients in the dental clinic, Sun often came across people with ulceration of the mouth. Because the health of the mouth is closely connected to the functioning of the entire body, to treat these patients, it was necessary to seek information from the field of internal medicine. Later, Sun discovered that the body's ability to heal itself depends mainly on its immune system. Thus, 12 years ago, he entered the PhD program in immunology at NTUH.

"In the course of my studies and research, I rediscovered that things like Chinese medicine and chikung have a salutary effect on the immune system. So I plunged into researching them." For the last decade or so he has gone to mainland China to teach every winter and summer vacation, and to exchange knowledge with Chinese medical practitioners there. This has given him even broader vision.

Sun is one of the very few doctors in Taiwan who is well-known in many areas of endeavor, a fact which also makes him somewhat controversial. In politics, he was a member of the 14th Central Committee of the KMT, and has stood in legislative elections. He also appears in the broadcast media, and has long written articles for newspapers and published books. Because he's very interested in Chinese medicine, meditation, and chikung, Sun often goes well beyond dentistry while treating patients in the dental clinic. He teaches his patients how to adjust their bodies and protect their health with Chinese medicine, meditation, breath control, and other health preservation methods. He also has close connections with the medical community in mainland China.

Sun says that he does what he does because of his personality, "I am lively and curious, and I don't like to be confined to a single field." He adds: "Through politics and writing I can promote my ideals, and through Zen meditation and chikung I can strengthen my body." Moreover, he says that it is a doctor's fundamental duty to help patients seek the best method of treatment, wherever it may be found. "An intellectual should have an open mind."

In terms of medical exchange across the Taiwan Strait, "Although the mainland's medical system and quality of care lag far behind the levels in Taiwan, in terms of developing Chinese medicine and the integration of Chinese and Western medicine, they have much that is unique and outstanding that we should learn from," he says. Of these lessons, perhaps the most important is that as early as the 1970s, mainland China wrote an article into its constitution requiring the central government to promote the development of traditional Chinese medicine.

With this in mind, when revisions were made to the ROC constitution, Sun tried very hard to have a provision added to "promote research and development of modern and traditional Chinese medicine." Later, he also proposed 10 concrete ideas, and aggressively pushed these at a KMT party congress. "In the National Health Research Institutes, the highest health research organization in Taiwan, there's no center dedicated to the study of traditional medicine. There are only individuals working on their own research projects. How can the status of Chinese medicine be raised in this kind of situation? How can it hold equal status with Western medicine when it comes to integration and communication?"How did people survive 200 years ago?

Lai Gi-ming, director of the Taiwan Cooperative Oncology Group at the National Health Research Institutes-who like Sun An-ti believes that finding the most appropriate treatment for patients is the core responsibility of a doctor-is studying urine-based treatments from the Chinese folk tradition.

"In terms of treating cancer, the thing that most frustrates modern doctors is that, after the surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy, all they can do is keep chasing and chasing the cancer, praying that it won't reoccur, or that they can at least delay any reoccurrence," says Lai. This situation has often caused him to think: "After patients have completed orthodox treatments, shouldn't there also be other forms of treatment to prevent or delay relapse?"

"When treatment runs into problems, patients will turn to any source they can-folk traditions, ancient prescriptions, new discoveries-searching for any opportunity to save their lives. Unfortunately many patients are also deceived because of this." Lai, who is also currently visiting physician for oncology at NTUH, says that in the past, doctors mostly thought that they were the only ones who could diagnose an illness and decide the right treatment. However, as understanding of illnesses has increased, doctors have increasingly come to see how complex they are, and what the limits are to medical practice. "Therefore, doctors had best open their minds a little, stop thinking of themselves as absolute authorities, and listen to what the patients want, or even take the initiative to explore new areas in search of more effective treatments."

Lai points out that major auxiliary treatments for cancer, such as raising the immune capability of the patient, suppressing the growth of blood vessels, or developing new pharmaceuticals to suppress cancer cells, offer great possibilities for Chinese medicine. They have great potential for development.

"We have always been accustomed to importing medical technology and pharmaceuticals from abroad. This creates dependence on the outside amongst the local medical community. It also costs a tremendous amount of foreign exchange," he says. From an economic point of view, efforts should be made to develop Chinese medicine and Chinese pharmaceuticals to earn money back. "If you want to jump into the mainstream, first you have to cultivate your own abilities and develop confidence and ambition."To treat the illness or the patient?

Whatever their starting points and pathways have been, the goal of any form of medicine is to cure the "person." It's just that Western and Chinese medicine look at illness in different ways and from different angles. The person-not the illness-will always remain the center of medicine.