Confusion for global healers
International friends of mine who are healers around the world, distributed throughout every region have recently alerted me to difficulties helping their global patients, especially with regard to naturally occurring substances such as chamomile and evidence reports conducted in countries outside the United States. More importantly, perhaps, every difficulty has pointed to their reference to the International Classification of Diseases (aka ICD), formally adopted by the WHO in 1948 to measure fatalities.
More recently and through the subsequent decades, the ICD has grown to accommodate "new" and emerging diseases. One could argue whether some of these conditions are, indeed, new, when in fact other cultures and civilizations have documented them for hundreds of years and in some cases millenia. Nevertheless, viruses mutate region to region, population to population and over time. Nature responds to every variable, internal and external. Regardless, the ICD has become a recent sore point for many health practitioners around the world, most especially outside the US.
As determined the Word Health Organization (WHO), it has been the gold standard of diagnosis and foundation for treatment protocol. Accordingly, it was formulated to serve as a "common language" for health workers. Therefore, it was made internationally accessible and translated into the four European languages of the UN at the time. While other medicinal practices have painstakingly researched and classified their more complex patterns of symptoms and classified them into the ICD within their countries, the US refuses or more poignantly refutes these classifications even though they were compiled and formulated according to scientific standards.
What is a health practitioner to do?
For many more persons throughout the world, the question becomes what IS a patient to do?
Currently, more and more patients in modern societies find themselves plagued with chronic and difficult conditions and the responsibility of navigating more complex medical information, managing their own healthcare and more often than not, trying to heal while remaining active in society- going to work, family, etc. More and more health practitioners CAM or Western medicine, are required to seek or need a Western diagnosis determined by the ICD. What happens when a diagnosis such as lupus or MS or countless others take years to obtain? What happens to the patient? To where does one turn?
For me, it led me to explore the archives of Sioux and ultimately to Chinese medicine. After all, both had considerable experience with lupus. In China, it was documented for more than two millenia. For many others, the "Alternative" path also calls. If they explore their options and an alternative treatment helps them, then they, too have been restricted with regard to language they can use to relay the results. Other friends of mine, patients, within the US have recently been told they cannot use the ICD terms such as Rheumatoid Arthritis, etc. in whatever they say to support other modalities through lectures, and in some cases, among their friends and family members.
The ICD is Internationally shared by the global family.
Accordingly, it is not wholly owned by anyone agency or body but a tool meant to serve the people.
It's all a matter of "translation"--of listening, understanding, valuing the many ways to see:)
I am eternally grateful to have encountered the people and tools needed along the way to decipher and discern changes, ways to see and understand concepts and ideas and for all those who share so much of their lives and their work with me. I am truly honoured. Thank-you one and all for teaching and friendship. love to you all
On that note, wishing all the readers of my thoughts, health and happiness and a journey of the heart. Thank-you for your time and consideration. Namaste, 湘君
Sunday, January 20, 2008
A Confusing time for Global health part 1
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
The Path Ahead and Difficult Questions
It seems as if nearly every one of my friends is pondering direction at this point in time
reflecting, meditating, reflecting, open to the universe......
Perhaps, this is inevitable around the holidays and the birth of the New Year.
I, too, find myself pondering not so much the where but how.....
If you would have asked me some time ago what I thought about my journey back to the US to fulfill obligations and do presentations, I would have told you it has been tortuous and had aside from those events, perhaps, emanated mistake. More accurately now, I see that it has raised awareness, focus, determination and infinitely heightened the learning curve. It also encouraged me to step beyond my comfort zone and contact people through an ever expanding, ever revealing game of connect-the dots.
Danger has inevitably lurked all about me as I pressed on. That has been made perfectly clear. Yet, I perhaps more fully hear the voices that resound throughout the other 80% of the world, I feel their hearts, their disappointments, their subjugation at times and lack of self-determination and, of course, more prominently, the cries and tales of experience of the healers and those afflicted and affected by illness that within my mind resound. It is within these moments that my heart feels weighted and the burdens seem so heavy. I cannot turn and walk away and/or turn a blind eye to the value of each tale, each event, occurrence and/or quest. Sometimes, it requires immediate meditation and mediation, lightening and refocusing it on the whole. As I shift my attention once more and question possibilities, I cannot help but think and ask myself in the words of my friend Ashis , "What to do?" (We've traveled the path a while, always joined in spirit. through good and bad times, for which I am eternally grateful. )
Looking back, I need no reminders. As I revisit my experience in China at the Huai Hua Red Cross International TCM hospital and at the Chinese Medicine Academy/ WHO research center in Beijing, the path is clear. All roads lead back to the Motherland. Nearly every day it beckons. It pulls at my heart. There is still so much to be learned, so much knowledge and skill experienced, studied, taught and "translated." There is also the bridge that needs more construction not only between East and West but also between antiquity and present day. The latter of these, perhaps, more clearly elucidates the greatest difficulty.
After sifting through many notebooks and journal entries in Chinese and English and anything in between from the seven plus months I spent in China, midst people from more than 60 countries, the human condition and experience is clear. Suffering exists across cultures and genetics, as do beliefs and healing. Bodies react differently. Within the midst of it all, however, the accommodation and adaptations made by all these patients and their families draw my eye and attention. So, too, shines their courage, their joy, appreciation for the little things, for more open conversations and sharing, for community.
Even now, the hours spent with patients and professors speak tomes to me and continue to teach and enlighten me. Words cannot express my honour and gratitude for sharing in their pathways and for the heart to heart, soul to soul connections this time and work has yielded. It is and has been invaluable.
It is far from complete!
This fact, this truth, of course, propels me onto the path even farther, urges more study, more listening, more bridge building and education and even neutral ground. It requests still with more connectedness not only between and among medical and social science disciplines but also among people themselves. At its deepest level, it asks for us to look into life's mirror and see our own humanity with humility and love.
It begs us to honour the sacred within everyday life, to honour the earth, to honour each other, to honour the interactive human experience within the world, within the elements and with each other. It leads us back to center.
As I continue my exploration of illness and healing, working across cultures, space and time
it is always enlightening and humbling. I appreciate the efforts of so many persons within the Traditional medicine branch of the WHO and so many other branches such as Drug resistant TB for their time and attention, to the efforts large and small directed toward the marriage of healers and medicine so that Health for ONE/ALL will become a reality.
I appreciate the physicians and healers who have opened their minds and hearts, at times, cast aside their worldviews to understand the varied ways to see and treat illness and look forward to more collaboration, honour between professions and the sharing of collective knowledge. As Marissa would say, "Pray it forward."
Hasten the day!
For now, I am merely a weaver of paths of lives, not entirely of my own device but empowered and encouraged by a diverse group of peoples scattered around the world and the Dao/ the source beyond my control. In time, all paths and truths are revealed. This, I know. Waiting merely cultivates faith, hope, and patience and tills the soul. As I ponder the next steps, more specifically my path within China itself, I hold you all within my hearts, wishing you always the best of journeys filled with love and happiness.
Namaste,
湘君
reflecting, meditating, reflecting, open to the universe......
Perhaps, this is inevitable around the holidays and the birth of the New Year.
I, too, find myself pondering not so much the where but how.....
If you would have asked me some time ago what I thought about my journey back to the US to fulfill obligations and do presentations, I would have told you it has been tortuous and had aside from those events, perhaps, emanated mistake. More accurately now, I see that it has raised awareness, focus, determination and infinitely heightened the learning curve. It also encouraged me to step beyond my comfort zone and contact people through an ever expanding, ever revealing game of connect-the dots.
Danger has inevitably lurked all about me as I pressed on. That has been made perfectly clear. Yet, I perhaps more fully hear the voices that resound throughout the other 80% of the world, I feel their hearts, their disappointments, their subjugation at times and lack of self-determination and, of course, more prominently, the cries and tales of experience of the healers and those afflicted and affected by illness that within my mind resound. It is within these moments that my heart feels weighted and the burdens seem so heavy. I cannot turn and walk away and/or turn a blind eye to the value of each tale, each event, occurrence and/or quest. Sometimes, it requires immediate meditation and mediation, lightening and refocusing it on the whole. As I shift my attention once more and question possibilities, I cannot help but think and ask myself in the words of my friend Ashis , "What to do?" (We've traveled the path a while, always joined in spirit. through good and bad times, for which I am eternally grateful. )
Looking back, I need no reminders. As I revisit my experience in China at the Huai Hua Red Cross International TCM hospital and at the Chinese Medicine Academy/ WHO research center in Beijing, the path is clear. All roads lead back to the Motherland. Nearly every day it beckons. It pulls at my heart. There is still so much to be learned, so much knowledge and skill experienced, studied, taught and "translated." There is also the bridge that needs more construction not only between East and West but also between antiquity and present day. The latter of these, perhaps, more clearly elucidates the greatest difficulty.
After sifting through many notebooks and journal entries in Chinese and English and anything in between from the seven plus months I spent in China, midst people from more than 60 countries, the human condition and experience is clear. Suffering exists across cultures and genetics, as do beliefs and healing. Bodies react differently. Within the midst of it all, however, the accommodation and adaptations made by all these patients and their families draw my eye and attention. So, too, shines their courage, their joy, appreciation for the little things, for more open conversations and sharing, for community.
Even now, the hours spent with patients and professors speak tomes to me and continue to teach and enlighten me. Words cannot express my honour and gratitude for sharing in their pathways and for the heart to heart, soul to soul connections this time and work has yielded. It is and has been invaluable.
It is far from complete!
This fact, this truth, of course, propels me onto the path even farther, urges more study, more listening, more bridge building and education and even neutral ground. It requests still with more connectedness not only between and among medical and social science disciplines but also among people themselves. At its deepest level, it asks for us to look into life's mirror and see our own humanity with humility and love.
It begs us to honour the sacred within everyday life, to honour the earth, to honour each other, to honour the interactive human experience within the world, within the elements and with each other. It leads us back to center.
As I continue my exploration of illness and healing, working across cultures, space and time
it is always enlightening and humbling. I appreciate the efforts of so many persons within the Traditional medicine branch of the WHO and so many other branches such as Drug resistant TB for their time and attention, to the efforts large and small directed toward the marriage of healers and medicine so that Health for ONE/ALL will become a reality.
I appreciate the physicians and healers who have opened their minds and hearts, at times, cast aside their worldviews to understand the varied ways to see and treat illness and look forward to more collaboration, honour between professions and the sharing of collective knowledge. As Marissa would say, "Pray it forward."
Hasten the day!
For now, I am merely a weaver of paths of lives, not entirely of my own device but empowered and encouraged by a diverse group of peoples scattered around the world and the Dao/ the source beyond my control. In time, all paths and truths are revealed. This, I know. Waiting merely cultivates faith, hope, and patience and tills the soul. As I ponder the next steps, more specifically my path within China itself, I hold you all within my hearts, wishing you always the best of journeys filled with love and happiness.
Namaste,
湘君
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