It is with much enthusiasm that I post my first entry from my Thailand APPE. Within my short time here it has been easy to distinguish major discrepancies between the U.S. healthcare system and that of Thailand. The United States is fully reliant on 'evidence based medicine' while the Thai rely on a system that balances spiritual, emotional, and physical health which banks on systematic reason more than evidence. My first experience towards the surrounding health care involved methods such as acupuncture, cupping, and physical messages. As many of us are familiar with the ideology behind acupuncture and messages, the technique of cupping is what really stood out to me (see Anthony Gutto in provided image). Cupping is a method that heavily relies on heat to treat damaged areas such as the shoulders or back and is designed to increase blood flow to selected areas in efforts to relieve stress and pain. Doctors that are licensed within Traditional Chinese Medicine (TMS) swear by techniques such as this that are intended to balance the "Yin and Yang" within ones body, however, these methods receive tremendous criticism from American practitioners because they lack supportive evidence proving efficacy.
All The Best,
Travis Frost
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