Signs You're With a Skilled TCM Practitioner

 

How to find a skilled TCM practitioner?

Choosing the right Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioner can feel like a daunting task, especially if you're new to this ancient form of healthcare. You might be asking yourself: 'How can I tell if this practitioner really knows what they're doing?' The stakes are high; after all, what you're really after is effective treatment to address your health concerns as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible. The cornerstone of any successful TCM treatment lies in precise diagnosis and tailored treatment plans. But how can you, without a background in TCM, distinguish a highly skilled practitioner from a mediocre one? In this blog post, we'll explore key signs to look for in a TCM practitioner who can not only correctly diagnose your condition but also provide the most effective treatment to resolve it.

To treat all diseases, one must diagnose. Only with a correct diagnosis can there be proper treatment, rather than relying solely on a one-sided concept or a fixed traditional method.

For a proper diagnosis, the TCM practitioner must follow the method of “evidence” differentiation by utilizing the four TCM diagnosis methods (see my previous blog “What is TCM?” for more info).  And the effectiveness of the treatment (minimizing treatment time and money spent) will be heavily dependent on a high enough resolution (granularity) diagnosis for the precise targeting of the treatment specifically to your conditions.  Out of the four diagnosis methods, it is “pulse reading” as the prime method that will help the practitioner yield a sufficiently high resolution diagnosis to pinpoint the what and where that consist the root cause(s) of the disease in your body to formulate the treatment (the how and when).

Proper Pulse Reading

Here are some hints on how a proper pulse reading is done.  The length of time, position of your arm relative to your body and a calm & quiet state in taking your pulse reading would be a good clue on whether the practitioner has the ability to perform a correct diagnosis.  Certainly, this is not the only criteria, but it is something that you can discern without professional training. 

1. Length of time for pulse reading:  between 3 to 5 minutes (or more);
2. Position of your arm:
• the height of your wrist should be just below the bottom of the heart,
• resting on a surface so your arm is not exerting any force,
• your upper arm should not be touching your body;
3. Calm and quiet state:  During the pulse reading, you must be quiet and calm.  There is no way that a practitioner can take a proper pulse reading with him/her having a lively chat or discussion with you that gets you all hype up or stress out or thinking hard.

I have seen many TCM practitioner only paying a causal attention or sometime just going through the motion in pulse reading.  In fact, I have seen some practitioner just filling in the blank in the patient’s record with a pulse reading that fits whatever conclusion they may have arrived at, disregarding the patient actual pulse.  Usually, these type of practitioner would spend less than a minute, sometime just seconds, in taking a pulse reading, all the while with your hand up in the air and/or having a chat with the patient on other subject matters.  I mean, pulse reading is not rocket science, but it does take dedicated focus to perform properly.  The practitioner can ask you questions during the pulse reading to assist in confirming certain readings, but they should be short and without you getting all worked up.

Does that mean if your TCM practitioner is not effective at all if they are not up-to-speed with pulse reading?  Not necessarily.  They can still be somewhat effective, especially for not so complex conditions.  But you may not be meeting the objectives of minimizing time and money spent.  For complex conditions (eg. cancer), it will be almost unsurmountable challenge to be effective, and in worst-case-scenario, it may even worsen your condition.

In this post, I've provided a practical guide aimed at helping you gauge the competence of a TCM practitioner. While this guide is not a guarantee, it's designed to increase your odds of finding a skilled practitioner who can help you return to optimal health. Time and money are precious, especially when it comes to healthcare. My hope is that this guide will serve as a valuable tool in your journey, aiding you in making informed choices more quickly and, ultimately, improving your chances for a successful, healthful outcome.