Tapping into the characteristics of Chinese medicine for the benefit of cancer patients

Today, when I opened the masterpiece of Prof. Chen Ruishen, my doctoral supervisor, I remembered his sincere teaching that we should be good at using TCM and boldly use TCM in malignant tumor clinical practice, and I deeply appreciate the profoundness of TCM. However, for a long time, Western medicine, including chemotherapy, radiotherapy, bio-immunotherapy, targeted therapy, etc., has been used more in clinical practice, although Chinese medicine is also used throughout the treatment. However, my Chinese medicine is superficial in a sense, and I am still far from experiencing the essence of Chinese medicine. My own life itself has benefited from TCM. When I was ill during my college years, I first looked to Western medicine, but with little success, and then I was cured by Dr. Jia Zhengzhong, the chief physician who is well versed in Zhou Yi. I am deeply grateful for Chinese medicine. This is the reason why I started to love TCM and step by step I entered the hall of TCM, and I am willing to work for it for the rest of my life. Chinese medicine has many therapeutic features, not only internal treatment, but also external treatment. At present, many of the distinctive methods of Chinese medicine are slowly being neglected or even forgotten, including many Chinese medicine practitioners. Many people still have a skeptical and negative view of TCM. But the fact is that the efficacy of Chinese medicine is an objective existence. No medical model can be completely effective, especially in the case of malignant tumors, and sometimes both Western and Chinese medicine can be powerless. I have often wondered how to use TCM to achieve better results. In clinical practice, it is often the case that patients who have undergone a lot of chemotherapy and radiotherapy often have poor results when using Chinese medicine. The reason for this is that, from the perspective of Chinese medicine, the root of the problem is injured. Therefore, for patients who have undergone excessive radiotherapy and chemotherapy, it is difficult to obtain better results in the follow-up, regardless of the treatment. As a clinical practitioner of Chinese and Western medicine in oncology, I often think about how to improve the efficacy of treatment. At present, Western medicine is absolutely dominant in the medical field, and for most malignant tumors, Western medicine must be chosen first or Chinese medicine must be chosen at the same time as Western medicine. For most malignant tumors, the first choice is Western medicine or Chinese medicine. If surgery is indicated, surgery is preferred, and radiotherapy is preferred for tumors that are extremely sensitive to radiotherapy. If conditions are available, all patients can choose TCM throughout their treatment. Many patients often choose TCM only after Western medicine has declared it incurable, but in fact, the efficacy of TCM at this stage is minimal and does not bring into play the characteristics of TCM. I myself am willing to put my head down and continue to make continuous efforts to use good western medical means to treat malignant tumors while digging deeper into TCM to really be able to provide better treatment for my patients.