Integrating Western medicine with the traditional therapies of Asia. Acupuncture for headaches, herbal remedies for cancer pain, Chinese-style massage for Parkinson's disease sufferers. These will be among treatments provided and scrutinized at the Tzu Chi Institute for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, which opens Monday at Vancouver Hospital. The popularity of such treatments is rising across North America, but major hospitals have been reluctant to put their prestige and resources on the line on behalf of alternative medicine.
Alternative medicine is everywhere.
The institute was conceived by a prominent Vancouver-based pediatrician of Chinese descent, Dr. Wah Jun Tze. His medical training is entirely Western, including postgraduate work at Harvard Medical School, but he became fascinated by traditional Chinese medicine during more than 60 trips there since 1985. There are a lot of things we need to explore. Even though some practices are 2,000 years old, they've never been accepted by the Western world because of lack of proper scientific evaluation. Tze says he understands why a vocal minority of Vancouver Hospital's doctors opposes the institute.