This book was written by a Western medical doctor who then trained with the college of Integrated Chinese Medicine, and subsequently devised a study course for the students of that school – the intention is to bridge the gap between the two styles of medicine, and to build as many connections as possible to facilitate communication between Western and complementary (the term alternative is not used) practitioners. It was written primarily for those who are studying or practising alternative medicine to give them an understanding of conventional medicine. The book is intended either to be purely a reference book, or a complete study course, as it contains frequent helpful self- assessment tests that ensure an understanding of the text. There are also many case studies that help to make it more user-friendly – we are, after all, treating people, not diseases or body systems.The only other book I have come across attempting to do a similar thing is that written by Stephen Gascoigne – The Clinical Medicine Guide: A Holistic Perspective – and Stephenson refers to this on several occasions. Gascoigne’s focus is more on the alternative therapy than conventional, so the two books would complement each other rather well.
This is far more than just a book about physiology and disease – it describes how a Western conventional doctor decides on diagnosis and treatment, and all the considerations that have to play a role in those decisions. The section on drugs tells how to find information about medication from the British National Formulary and where it is freely available online; there is an interesting section on drug classification, and also on how to help patients withdraw from specific medication.
There are sections on ‘red flag’ conditions, which appear in each chapter relating to disease – these are summarised in the appendix, making this a valuable resource.There is a large section on mental health disorders covering anxiety, depression, eating disorders and psychoses. There are chapters on disease processes, cancer, infectious disease; the anatomy and physiology of all body systems are explained in very readable form, together with their disorders and problems; chapters on children’s health, pregnancy and childbirth follow. The chapter on diseases of the endocrine system is well written as a teaching aid. The explanations of all the various conventional tests are likely to be valuable information about blood tests, investigative tests such as barium swallow, endoscopy, cystoscopy etc. The section on how to communicate with conventional medics is a great idea.
The accompanying CD contains extra material in the form of several appendices. One summarises and compares the functions of body organs from both a Western and a Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective – very useful for those wanting to bridge the information gap between the two medical systems. Another looks at the interpretation of the energetic action of drugs, how they relieve symptoms and their side effects from a TCM perspective – a how-to-do-it guide for specific drugs. The red flag appendix, and the withdrawal of drug appendix, are extensions of the information contained in the book – both contain a lot more information and should prove very useful. For those using the book as a study guide there is a helpful appendix of check lists as summaries of topics studied.
Potentially extremely useful to anyone doing presentations is the fact that all the diagrams and pictures in the book are available to export from the CD.
Although this book is most relevant to those studying or practising Chinese Medicine it has relevance to Western and Ayurvedic herbalists too. An understanding of TCM would make a difference to how much the reader will get out of this book; but it can very easily be primarily used as a study guide or reference in the understanding of conventional Western medicine.
This book would make an excellent text book for anyone studying any alternative therapy and requiring an understanding of the way conventional medicine works. It would also make an excellent anatomy and physiology textbook – so this twin function more than makes up for its lack of breadth from an alternative perspective.
Reviewed by Christine Herbert