Liu Baoyan, the vice president of the Chinese Academy of TCM, explained that both cultures could learn from each other.
Che Hung Leong, the president of the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine, emphasized the “parallel status” of TCM and Western medicine and noted the awkwardness of dubbing mainstream Chinese medical practices as “alternative.”
He noted that many of the finest practitioners of TCM were first trained in Western medical schools and he also advocated teaching TCM to Western doctors.
Leong also questioned how the two approaches should be integrated without overloading medical students with both Western and Eastern medical knowledge.
Both Leong and Eisenberg remarked that exceptional scientific data alone—not consumer demand or politics—would lead to CAM’s acceptance in the Western medical community.