A Tibetan Medical Perspective on Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Based on his own practice of Tibetan medicine, the author analyzes the rapprochement between Tibetan medicine, biomedicine and the industry of complementary and alternative medicine/integrative medicine. Discussed are the social, ethical and medical significance of the transformation of traditional Tibetan medicine in the context of Western (esp. American) normative public health policies .

Asian Medicine, 2006

The history of Tibetan medicine's development provides an excellent model for planning the appropriate utilization of 'foreign' medical systems and traditions within a new culture that incorporates progressive approaches for the use of both medical pluralism and integration. This history takes on increasing relevance in the modern world as the practice of Tibetan medicine and other forms of traditional Asian medicine have been spreading in the West where they have been faced with commoditization and the hegemony of biomedicine. In the face of modern globalization, certain key questions have yet to be sufficiently addressed. How can systems of traditional Asian medicine be incorporated into western cultures in a manner that permits them to contribute to our understanding of health and disease while allowing them to retain their own integrity? How can they be utilized to aid in the solution of public health problems that exist in the West? What should be the proper interaction between traditional Asian medical systems (e.g., Tibetan medicine) and biomedicine? To determine the answer to these and other vital questions, we must take into account the many cultural, political, economic and scientific issues that affect the state of both public health and individual healthcare.

Tibetan Medicine in the Contemporary World. Global Politics of Medical Knowledge and Practice, edited by Laurent Pordié.

Alternative therapies in health and medicine, 1999

To make use of an ancient traditional medical system we must first be able to comprehend the singular concepts and language it utilizes to understand and describe health and illness. The diagnostic procedure is the method by which a person's medical condition is interpreted into the epistemological categories and language of medical science. This article provides a description of traditional Tibetan medical diagnosis, and explains how a Tibetan physician perceives and analyzes a presenting illness. It discusses the spiritual, psychological and physical aspects of the Tibetan medical approach to diagnosis. By addressing these issues we can understand what is unique about this system of alternative medicine and how it can inform other models of medical practice.

There is a growing interest in studies that document the relationship between science and medicine - as ideas, practices, technologies and outcomes - across cultural, national, geographic terrain. Tibetan medicine is not only known as a scholarly medical tradition among other Asian medical systems, with many centuries of technological, clinical, and pharmacological innovation; it also survives today as a complex medical resource across many Asian nations - from India and Bhutan to Mongolia, Tibet (TAR) and China, Buryatia - as well as in Western Europe and the Americas. The contributions to this volume explore, in equal measure, the impacts of western science and biomedicine on Tibetan grounds - i.e., among Tibetans across China, the Himalaya and exile communities as well as in relation to globalized Tibetan medicine - and the ways that local practices change how such “science” gets done, and how this continually hybridized medical knowledge is transmitted and put into practice. As ...

The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 72 (1): 194 - 198., 2013

Full title: Medicine Between Science and Religion: Explorations on Tibetan Grounds. Edited by Vincanne Adams, Mona Schrempf and Sienna R. Craig. Epistemologies of Healing, vol. 10. New York: Berghahn Books, 2011. xiii, 371 pp. $100.00 (cloth); $21.95 (paper).Tibetan Medicine in the Contemporary World: Global Politics of Medical Knowledge and Practice. Edited by Laurent Pordié. Needham Institute Research Series. London: Routledge, [2008] 2011. xvi, 271 pp. $188.00 (cloth); $44.95 (paper).

Asian Medicine: Journal of the International Association for the Study of Traditional Asian Medicine (Leiden: Brill), 2015

This collection of articles opens up new cross-cultural and multidisciplinary ways of understanding efficacy and safety in globalised Asian medicine. Using a variety of disciplinary approaches together-historical, philosophical, anthropological, public health-the contributions examine Tibetan and Chinese medicine on their own terms and also in comparison. They contextualise the views of and nurture appreciation for distinct actors in both Asia and the Euro-American regions who are involved in making, regulating, distributing, prescribing, and consuming Tibetan and Chinese medicines. Highlighting the roles of these actors in Tibetan and Chinese medicine, this volume demonstrates how they understand, confront, or negotiate multivalent epistemologies and practices of efficacy and safety. The contributions also reveal underlying hegemonic discourses that prevail between scholar physicians or within distinct medical systems, and in relation to prevalent ideas and practices of medicine represented by different national regulatory regimes situated in time.

Complementary Therapies in Nursing by Lindquist, Tracy, & Snyder, 2022

Conventional healthcare is burdened by caring for individuals whose health problems result in part from unhealthy choices. As people become more healthconscious, they are looking outside of conventional healthcare for answers to wellbeing. Often, they turn to diverse systems of care, such as the myriad of Native American and Asian healing systems, that support the power of the mind and body to establish, maintain, and restore health. These traditions may lack scientific evidence. The scientific method doesn't easily adapt to investigating holistic systems. Their profound therapies may affect the mind and body in ways that are not measurable. People may engage in these practices without understanding their context, meaning, and safety (National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health [NCCIH], 2021b). The goal of integrative nursing is to advance health and wellbeing through person-centered, evidence-based care that incorporates complementary therapies and conventional healthcare (Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing, University of Minnesota, 2021b). To practice quality care, nurses need to learn about diverse care systems. For example, homeopathy and naturopathy are recent care systems that may be effective but currently lack high-quality scientific evidence (Natural Medicines, 2021b, 2021c). Education and licensing differ for the various types of homeopathic (American Institute of Homeopathy, 2021) and naturopathic practitioners (American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, 2021). Homeopathy developed in Germany at the end of the 18th century. The central tenets are that (a) like cures like, which means a disease can be cured by a substance that produces similar symptoms in healthy people, and (b) the law of minimum dose, meaning that the lower the dose of medication, the greater its effectiveness (NCCIH, 2021d). Naturopathy as a care system evolved from a combination of traditional practices and healthcare approaches popular in Europe during the 19th century. Naturopaths practice according to these principles: (a) Treat the individual, (b) stimulate and support the body's inherent ability to heal, (c) identify the root cause of dysfunction, (d) address the cause naturally and gently, and (e) teach clients how to create wellness and prevent illness (NCCIH, 2021e). In contrast, Tibetan medicine from Tibet and Ayurveda from India are ancient, yet timely, systems of care (NCCIH, 2021a). Publications are exploding with studies about the benefits of their therapies (Lindquist et al., 2018; Natural Medicines, 2021a). Both traditions use natural, holistic approaches to physical, mental, and