Ambulatory Care

I'm back in Loma Linda now, doing a rotation called ambulatory care, which is like a rotating clinic. I spend a day at a variety of clinics, such as internal medicine, dermatology, student health, AIDS, chiropracty, oriental medicine, and so on. The day with oriental medicine was sweet. Very interesting stuff. They even gave me a free appointment where I got accupunture and moxibustion (burning herbs on the skin). The accupunture on my back, feet, and arms relieved some light back pain/tension I had. The moxibustion was supposed to help my qi ("chee", hard to translate, but kind of like a life force) in general. 5 days later I still have a mark on my skin that smells good. And they told me to stop drinking cold water. Room temperature is best. This may sound like silly stuff, but there is thousands of years of experience in the stuff. I have to remind myself that just because we don't have a current scientific explanation, it doesn't mean it doesn't work, or that we won't find an explanation years later. Also, some people may avoid this medicine because they think it's of a cult or another religion. From my experience, there wasn't anything religious about it other than general recommendations for someones spirit, like living a balanced life.