By David Park, Founder of South Baylo University
Recently, Korean culture is getting more popular among young Americans. Rapidly increasing number of young Americans love listening BTS’s music and eating Korean cuisine. These phenomena could be defined as a trend. Trends in general, spread fast among groups of people and generate culture.
I dare to say that Traditional Korean Medicine, TKM represents whole complementary and alternative medicines. TKM has a long history and as it contains Korean’s wisdom, ideas, culture and philosophy. Fundamental to Korean philosophy is Hanism. of Korean philosophy is Hanism. Hanism could be explained as 홍익인간(弘益人間; welfare forward mankind)’ and ‘재세이화(在世理化; reason-Able society)’. Welfare forward mankind(홍익인간) is sharing personal knowledge and valuables with others and Reason-Able Society(재세이화) means that a country should be ruled by reason, not by authority or force. These ideas are also in TKM.
The most important book in TKM, Treasured Mirror of Eastern Medicine, 동의보감, said “a physician who does not have empathy cannot completely treats his patient’s symptoms.”. Definition of TKM treatment is not limited to treat symptoms. The patient’s physiological aspects should be examined and treated along with physical symptoms.” A physician should be able to consider the patient’s emotional state allows the practitioner to think for the entire wellbeing of the patient first.”
Hanism can explain the popularity of BTS and Korean foods in America. Music and food are for one who enjoy. Members in BTS or cooks in kitchen of a Korean restaurants think put their customers first in order to provide their best. This is part of Hanism. I would like to introduce a brief history of acupuncture in California for recently licensed acupuncturists. When I founded South Baylo University (SBU) in the late 1970’s, acupuncturists were not considered as primary care physicians, so they faced many difficulties and disadvantages.
Now the rights and power of acupuncturists have made major strides after a long fight. Now the rights and power of acupuncturists have made major strides after a long fight. 14th Amendment was to eliminate the oppression of minorities and to provide equality of opportunity in 1868. The history of American acupuncture is just 40 years and back then, Asian medicine was not considered a medicine.
Also, there was no regulations or laws regarding acupuncture practice. The first state to establish acupuncture rules and regulations was Nevada in 1973. The next was state of California. The California state government established a committee for acupuncture by the order of the governor and the committee legislated acupuncture laws and regulations. In 1977, I founded the SBU.
I witnessed all the rules and regulation regarding acupuncture and acupuncturists. The biggest issue at that time was that acupuncturists were not considered as primary practitioner. Acupuncturists could not treat patients without a referral from a primary care physician such as MDs, dentists, or chiropractors. In 1977 and 1978, to gain autonomy for acupuncturists, students in SBU along with other acupuncturists gathered to the state Congress in Sacramento to express their concerns.
While the students were not in Sacramento, they wrote letters to their congressmen to advocate for acupuncturists’ right to treat patients without a referral. Still, there were more to struggle for acupuncturists. There was no clear cut for scope of practicing acupuncture. The multi-committee again fought and gained current scope of acupuncture treatment.
Currently, acupuncturists are facing challenges from other group of healthcare practitioners and some interest groups.
I believe that every change we made together was possible because Hanism gave me a faith and reason to fight. I want to let more Americans know what Hanism is and how Hanism affects Korean culture including TKM.
