The State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine is working to submit a bid to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to list traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) as world intangible cultural heritage.

The effort is partly aimed at easing TCM doctors' worries. They are seeing the growth of their ancient practice become stymied.

"Intangible cultural heritage" is defined by the UNESCO as the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge and skills that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage.

"If it turns into a successful bid, the world cultural heritage status of TCM will help ensure the preservation of its original philosophical and physiological principles," said Lu Jiage, who manages a TCM clinic in Beijing he inherited from his father.

Lu is pessimistic about the modernization of TCM. "It is destroying the sacred medical practice," he said.

From drug management, medical education, to medicine qualification examinations, the standards of Western medicine are observed without exception.

"A lot of TCM doctors have been excluded from the present medical system since the enforcement of the new medical practitioner qualification law," Lu said, "even though they have played an important role in passing on ancient medical wisdom."

"We TCM doctors are losing our status in the hospitals," said Zhou Ping'an, a professor at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine and also a veteran TCM doctor in the university's affiliated hospital.

In his hospital, the TCM internal medicine department is suffering, because the herbs prescribed by TCM hospitals only turn a small profit. In order to survive, the hospital is emphasizing surgery, which generates a much larger profit.

"One day, TCM hospitals might only exist in name," said Zhou.

As he sees it, the young generation of TCM doctors have lost their confidence in TCM as they become more and more reliant on Western practices.

"The financial difficulty for TCM universities and affiliated hospitals is striking," Zhou said. "Without more financial support from the government, TCM will stumble," said Zhou.

His heart aches as he is forced to teach graduate students in a shabby, single-storey house, he said.

"TCM's bid for world cultural heritage status will help raise the status of TCM in the present medical system. We should strive for it," Zhou said.

Source: China Daily