Integrating East Asian Medicine into Contemporary Healthcare : edited by Volker Scheid and Hugh MacPherson.

Integrating East Asian Medicine into Contemporary Healthcare :  edited by Volker Scheid and Hugh MacPherson.

ISBN: 978-0-7020-3021-5

pages: 256

‘…My sense is that the goal of the volume is to promote discussion and open new space for readers to ponder important, deep and complex issues.  The volume asks critical questions that are necessary for deliberate and careful integration of the East into the West.  The volume assumes that medical facts, medical practice, knowledge of "what works" and theories of healing are embedded in complex cultural and social discourse.   Instead of simple answers, it brings the reader into the heart of conundrums.  This honest openness is a positive omen demonstrating that scholars and practitioners of East Asian medicine are ready to work together and grapple with hard questions. Besides being a good sign for the West, this volume has a promise for the East.  For the first time in East Asian medical history, it will be possible to compare Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese variants and interpretations in the context of critical input from western scholars and practitioners.   Such a dialogue will not eliminate complexity and uncertainty, but will undoubtedly make for a revitalized and genuinely cosmopolitan version of East Asian medicine.   The scholars and practitioners in this volume are brave pioneers in the current East-West and North-South encounters that hold the promise to transform East Asian medicine from a regional medicine to a world medicine.  The integration of East and West depends on the kind of honesty and creativity that is displayed in this volume.’