Foreword

Foreword

In the first half of 2011, the Gansu Provincial Health Department called on medical personnel at all levels in the province to establish their own Weibo accounts, with the aim of: 1. Strengthening the connection between doctors and patients; 2. Strengthening the connection among doctors. Strengthening the connection between doctors and patients can help patients better understand their own illnesses, dispel doubts, avoid unnecessary detours, and, of course, enable doctors to gain a deeper understanding of various patients, which is beneficial for clinical practice. Strengthening the connection among doctors allows them to exchange experiences, share insights, learn from each other’s strengths, and ultimately invigorate the academic atmosphere within the profession, promoting the advancement of medicine.

Director Liu Weizhong attaches great importance to this initiative, particularly favoring the establishment of websites by renowned veteran traditional Chinese medicine doctors. As a senior practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine and integrated traditional and western medicine, I wholeheartedly admire Director Liu’s vision. Accordingly, starting last August, I began working on this project together with my students—Lu Weide (currently a doctoral candidate), Qi Xueting, Dong Qinqin, Feng Yongxiao, Shan Jinshu, Liu Yuan, and others (all currently master’s candidates). I would speak while they typed away at the computer, day after day, without interruption for a whole year. At the beginning, when we had not yet established contact with netizens from various regions, I proactively shared my views on traditional Chinese medicine, Western medicine, and the integration of the two systems, hoping to spark discussion and encourage others to contribute their ideas. And indeed, within less than two months, netizens from all over the country began to reach out, asking me questions from various angles and seeking my advice. For every question, I made sure to respond carefully and thoroughly. Some were about medical theory, but most concerned personal health issues, aiming to achieve a correct understanding of the illness and effective treatment methods. Over the course of a year, we answered nearly ten thousand questions, covering all body systems, including internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics, and obstetrics and gynecology. I am 75 years old and have been practicing medicine for 53 years. Throughout my long clinical career, I have worked with both Western and traditional Chinese medicine, but most of the time I have focused on clinical practice integrating the two. Clinicians who integrate traditional and western medicine are, in fact, general practitioners. Drawing on my extensive clinical experience and continuous learning, I am generally able to provide reasonable answers to the questions posed by netizens. From August last year to August this year, we accumulated about 200,000 characters of text. Initially, we did not expect to publish a book, but my students—Lu Weide, Qiu Yumei, Cai Zhengliang, Jing Zhanping, and others—strongly suggested compiling the material and quickly got to work, organizing the content into a book.

As the book is about to be published, Director Liu Weizhong took time out of his busy schedule to write the preface, greatly enhancing the value of the book. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude!

Pei Zhengxue at the Gansu Provincial Academy of Medical Sciences
August 10, 2012

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