P03.04. How to Integrate Traditional Chinese Medicine Into a Western Medical Clinical Practice

Focus Area: Integrative Approaches to Care Based on more than 20 years' clinical experience of integrative medicine in both China and America, using a series of experiential cases mainly of herbs/TCM intervention on kidney diseases and enhancing well-being, and from the perspective as a nephrologist, this paper presents the basic modalities of integrative medicine (IM) by describing the clinical skill of knowing how and when to use herbal/TCM intervention by applying the methodology of “disease-pattern combination” on how to make the drug-herb interaction achieve “mutual enhancement.” This paper also proposed a hypothesis about the “whole food herbal medicine” and discusses the importance of controlling the herb dosage and the cost-effectiveness of herbal remedies. Finally, this paper will share the basic, simpler method with medical doctors on how to learn herbs/TCM step by step.