After half a century of self-innovation, the integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine has witnessed the great progress in both clinical and basic research. However, the theoretical system of the integrative medicine does not break through the limitations of traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine, which hinders its implication in experimental study and clinical work. In view of the current situation, to develop the integration of traditional Chinese and Western medicine further, efforts should be made in such aspects as educational system construction, talent personnel training, improving the level of clinical practice and corresponding basic research as well as the establishing the basic theoretical system.
Clinical Medicine ; History, 20th Century ; Humans ; Integrative Medicine ; history ; methods ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; history ; methods ; Research

RO Kishun was born on February 2, 1893 in Ongjin County, Hwanghae Province of Joseon Korea. He graduated from the Medical Training Center, a campus associated with the Joseon Government-General Hospital, in 1915, and from Kyushu Imperial University School of Medicine in 1917. He continued his medical study at the university in 1929, majoring in biochemistry, and earned a doctorate in medicine in 1932. Dr. RO, one of the earliest pioneers in Korean biochemistry, was active in his research, publishing four studies in the Japanese Journal of Biochemistry between 1931 and 1932. After returning from Japan in 1932, Dr. RO opened a medical practice in Mokpo and Busan, port cities situated on the southern tip of Korea. Later in 1936, he moved north to Manchuria (northeast China) to practice medicine at the International Hospital in Mukden (present-day Shenyang). He also served as president of Tumen Public Hospital between 1942 and 1946. When Japan signed unconditional surrender bringing World War II to an end, Dr. RO relocated to Yanbian and began providing medical training to ethnic Koreans. In October 1946, he was appointed dean of the First Branch School of China Medical University in Longjing, and in October 1948 the first dean of Yanbian Medical School, the predecessor of Yanbian University College of Medicine. Dr. RO dedicated his life to medical practice, teaching and training students, and mentoring younger faculty. A brilliant clinician, he also inspired and helped his colleagues with his outstanding ability to diagnose and treat patients. He was one of the founding members of Yanbian University College of Medicine. RO Kishun died on June 7, 1957 at age 64. Ethnic Koreans hailed him as Sinui (literally, the physician of God), and a bronze statue of himself was erected in front of the medical college in 1988. Dr. RO's life brings modern historians' attention to the issue of determining geographical territories and nationality, in that his life unfolded at the borderlands or frontiers of Joseon Korea, China, and Japan, where the history of the three nations met and intermingled with one another. He was a biochemist and researcher, practicing physician and medical professor of the era under Japanese Rule and the one following it. In modern Korean medicine, his life is viewed as a history of the borders, or a transnational legacy going beyond individual history of Korea, China, and Japan.
Biochemistry/*history ; Clinical Medicine/history ; Education, Medical/*history ; History, 20th Century ; Hospitals, Public/history ; Humans ; Korea ; Universities/history

From the perspective of research methodology, it may be said to exist two kinds of different historical approaches with regards to the formation of modern clinical medicine at the turn of the nineteenth century. One is to explain this in terms of the agency or structure that is associated with research topic. This historical view assumes that the Western scientific rationalism is characterized by the unity of Western tradition and its evolution as continuity. Its main foucs is given either on how French revolution and war affected the growth of clinical medicine and the hospital reform movement or on how Paris Clinical School contributed to the birth of modern clinical medicine. The other is, according to Michel Foucault, to analyze how medical discourses are related to social(institutional) practices. Following Canguilhem's history of concepts, Foucault traces the historical development of the concept of disease. Elizabeth A. Williams, another proponent of this method, conceptualizes the eighteenth-century medicine as three different medical discourses - anthropology, physiology and philosophical medicine, and analyzes how their structural fragmentation were transformed into the modern establishment of clinical medicine in the nineteenth century. In conclusion, first, the historical research may be compatible with epistemological investigation of modern clinical medicine. Second, the modernity of Western medicine can not be fully clarified without understanding the reciprocal relationships between hygienic medicine and clinical medicine.
Clinical Medicine/*history ; English Abstract ; France ; *Historiography ; History of Medicine, 18th Cent. ; History of Medicine, 19th Cent. ; History of Medicine, 20th Cent. ; Philosophy, Medical/*history ; Science/*history ; Western World

The history of medical genetics is briefly reviewed. It is evident that medical genetics with its inseparable part, clinical genetics, started out as a clinical science from the very beginning. Its robust development in the developed countries is the result of a close interaction between the basic sciences and clinical genetics. In China, however, clinical genetics has not received due emphasis and medical genetics is still not recognized as one of the medical specialties. This is in marked contrast to the situation in the West It is high time to acknowledge that medical genetics is a medical specialty and to promote clinical genetics service in qualified hospitals in our country.
China ; Clinical Medicine ; Genetics, Medical ; history ; Genome ; History, 19th Century ; History, 20th Century ; History, 21st Century ; Humans ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional

Je Jung Won was the first modern-style Government hospital built by the Korean King Ko-Jong in April 1885, and it was the medical missionary Horace Newton Allen(1858~1932) who made one of the greatest contributions to the establishment of the hospital. Allen was an American missionary. He graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University with a degree in theology in 1881, and completed one-yearcourse at Miami Medical College. In Korea and America he worked as a physician, a missionary, an American diplomatic minister to Korea and a Korean minister's secretary to America. While acting as a mediator between Korea and America, he knew and recorded the domestic and foreign situation of Korea during Gaehwagi(the civilized and enlightened age). Thus to study him is to understand Korea's Gaehwagi as well as to research American medical missionaries. During his stay in Korea(1884~1905), Allen steadily wrote diaries and letters about Korean politics, diplomacy, society, culture, and medicine. Thus his public/private record through diaries and letters(the quantity of these materials amounts to several thousands) supplements the Korean early modern era's historical record. However, until now these materials have received little scholarly attention from researchers except for a few historians of missionary work between Korea and America, or of Korean modern medicine. I intended to use these materials to suggest a new perspective on the study of Korean Gaehwagi. Allen, along with John W. Heron, who came to Seoul on June 21st 1885, treated about 10,460 Korean patients in the first year of the opening of JeJungWon. They made "the first annual report of the Korean Government Hospital". This report explained how Allen and Heron regarded and treated Korean patients. Allen's diaries, letters and other writings offer a realistic view of how the western people actually recognized the Korean people at that time. As a western doctor, Allen had an ambivalent attitude toward Korean medical concepts and systems. On the one hand, he thought that medical idea, some food and drug of Korean is valuable. He said that the native Korea faculty had some good ideas with regards to treatment. And he held Korean rice, ginseng, and so on in high regard. However, he did not rate Korean acupuncture and Korean traditional ointment at all. In addition, he sometimes cured Korean patients dangerously and with imprudence. The amputation of patients' body, no matter how little, must ask the permission of the patients themselves. Especially, the sense of Korean filial duty couldn't accept amputation of body at those times. The artificial change of body meant to hurt parents' body, because at those times Korean people thought that my body was my parent's possession. But Allen did it without enough explanation or persuasion. Moreover he didn't feel guilty for the behavior at all. Besides, he seemed to be proud of it in the above mention. Such careless or unethical behavior cannot be excused. On the other hand, he had made mistakes in treatment according to his record. He pulled out some healthy teeth of patients who had a bad toothache. But he didn't explain nor apologize the mistake. Besides, he refused treatment of patients until the hospital would be opened in order to push Korean government to prepare hospital quickly. Why or how did he do that? The first answer available to the question, he might be so confident of his medical knowledge and skill that he didn't feel the need to ask the patients' thought and will. However, as stated above, his medical study was just one year. And he worried about his inexperience of surgery. Thus the first assumption seems to be false. He wasn't confident of his medical knowledge. The fact that nevertheless Allen treated Korean patients at his will, is still blamable. The second assumption is that he regarded western modern medicine as the only correct and proper approach. He didn't have many experiences, but his west modern medicine made him proud of its achievement. After middle 19th century of modern times, Micheal Foucault said at The Birth of Clinics, western modern medicine believed itself scientific on the ground that west modern medicine could have pathology and surgery. Allen might also trust the scientific ability of western modern medicine. So he might think that he didn't need to explain 'modern and scientific' medicine of West to people in 'premodern and non-scientific' medicine of Korea. The third answer is his 'Orientalism'. He thought that Koreans were dirty, lazy, and barbarous and, therefore, he made a clear distinction between Caucasian and Korean. He set his affection on 'Cho-Seon' and made efforts to cure Korean patients and establish the first western Government hospital in Korea. However he, as a westerner, could not free himself from 'Orientalism' and 'Imperialism'. Thus, he might ride so roughshod Korean patients. In fact the 'Orientalism' was not only Allen's thought. Many western visitors thought Korean as an 'Orient'. The West regarded themselves as civilized and the East as uncivilized or barbarous, therefore the West thought that the East should be modernized with the help of the West. This thought rationalized their imperialism and colonialism toward the East. In addition, he seemed to have some ambition in politics and diplomatics. He wanted to be a high-ranking official, so his goal of his life was political or economical power rather than medical missionary.
Clinical Medicine/history ; Colonialism/history ; Democratic People's Republic of Korea ; History of Medicine ; History, 19th Century ; History, 20th Century ; Hospitals/history ; *Human Body ; Humans ; Politics ; *Recognition (Psychology) ; Religion and Medicine ; Republic of Korea ; United States

The American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) sets standards and certifies and recertifies physicians to practise internal medicine and its subspecialties in America. The ABIM was established in 1936 as a non-profit corporation, one of many specialty boards, such as the American Board of Family Medicine, the American Board of Pediatrics, the American Board of Surgery, etc. The umbrella organisation for these groups is the American Board of Medical Specialties. Members of the American College of Physicians take certifying and recertifying examinations produced by ABIM. Beginning in 1990, ABIM certificates were valid for 10 years. To maintain certification, physicians were required to participate in ABIM maintenance of certification (MOC) programme. The goals are to improve quality of care, to set standards for clinical competency, to foster continuing scholarship, and lead to medical quality improvement. The MOC programme involves verification of credentials, completion of self-evaluation, and completion of a secure exam. The self-evaluation component is the most complex and has been the most controversial due to the diversity of internal medicine careers and continued learning patterns. ABIM continually introduces new options for evaluation of practice performance. In addition to recertification in General Internal Medicine, ABIM has subspecialty examinations. MOC has been well received by professional organisations, but there are areas of controversy. It has been accepted as an important way for internists to assure quality of practice and currency of medical information.
Certification ; history ; organization & administration ; Clinical Competence ; standards ; History, 20th Century ; Humans ; Internal Medicine ; standards ; Societies, Medical ; United States

Professor TIAN's experiences on acupuncture treatment of various difficult diseases with different acupuncture methods based on syndrome differentiation of different patients, for example, para-acupuncture for treatment of migraine, triple puncture at Dazhui (GV 14) for recurrent depression, lifting and thrusting point Shexiaxue for treatment of aphasia, electroacupuncture at Shuigou (GV 26) and Baihui (GV 20) for treatment of schizophrenia, etc. are introduced.
Acupuncture Therapy ; history ; methods ; Aphasia ; therapy ; Clinical Medicine ; history ; methods ; Depression ; therapy ; History, 21st Century ; Humans ; Migraine Disorders ; therapy ; Portraits as Topic ; Schizophrenia ; therapy ; Stroke ; therapy