The west coast of the U.S.A. is an area with a large population of immigrants, multi-culture background and high level of civilization and openness where people are more apt to accept different cultures. In 1994, UCLA medical school officially listed Integrated Western and Chinese Medicine as a selective course for western medical students, which started a new stage in the academic history of American medical schools. The Western and Oriental Medicine Center at UCLA believe that the dynamic integration of TCM and contemporary WM will help to find a new path for development of medical science. The primary efficacy of combined Chinese and Western Medicine is through clinical practices, specially, through integrated diagnoses and treatments. Yet, such integration is lack of a shared theoretical foundation, not in a true synthetic union.
Researches have to tend to focus on diagnosis and treatment, rather than theory.
The precision of WM according to pathogenic organs isolated compensates for TCM's shortcomings, clearly divides health from disease on the basis of objective, quantitative methods attained by the examiner's assessment, instruments and lab markers. Normal function depends upon the balance of Qi and blood in the body. But once ability of immune monitor is reduced by external or internal pathogen factors, mutated cells will not be cleaned out of immune system and accumulate and keep growing in the body without knowing when to stop growing. The process of cancer probably begins in many people through contact with certain chemicals called carcinogens. However, these carcinogens in their original form do not cause cancer.