HPC officials confirm that they focused only on the narrower question of whether the establishment of a licensing system would reduce risks to the public posed by unqualified practitioners. But James Knights, a Victoria-area TCM practitioner and president of the Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine of British Columbia, dismisses suggestions that TCM should be subjected to scientific scrutiny. He maintains that it has already proven its value through 5000 years of clinical experience. Knights says medical doctors should simply respect the professional judgement of qualified TCM practitioners, even if their methods seem alien. He thinks establishment of the new college will hasten this process.
Western medicine is better suited to dealing with acute health problems.
We advise patients to seek Western medical treatment when required. He says TCM's new professional status should encourage Western-trained doctors to reciprocate and refer patients with chronic ailments better treated by TCM to these practitioners. But this will likely be a more trouble-prone relationship than Knights suggests. The BC college had opposed TCM's designation as a health profession precisely because of the lack of scientific evidence for the efficacy of TCM treatment and concerns about the appropriateness of TCM training based on metaphysical principles such as qi . It is now drawing up a draft policy to guide doctors through the ethical problems associated with TCM and other alternative treatments.