The last two days have been full of vocational activities.

On Thursday we had a day of traditional Chinese Medicine, first at the Baptist Hospital, where there is an organized faculty and fully funded university level teaching program leading to a degree of doctor of chinese medicine. It is backed up by a highly developed and equiped research program evaluating the formulation, stability, purity, and manufacture of herbal medications. Such issues as source contamination with heavy metals, consistency, purity, efficacy, and formulation into granules, capsules, or tablets were being researched. We also saw our first chinese medicine pharmacy with drawer after drawer of botanicals of all sorts, which were being weighed and mixed to be taken home and steeped into tea. We also had an introduction into acupuncture, cupping and moxibustion. And and introduction into the traditional approach to examination and diagnosis.

We then went on to Tung Wah Hospital in the afternoon to see this famous charity hospital with a 100 year history of voluntary non-profit work with 1000 beds, three sites, and associated schools. They, to, had an active chinese medicine clinic and pharmacy, this time with an automated prescription fulfillment robot, if you can believe it. They were using an electronic medical record in the clinic that had been there for 9 years! State of the art, I'd say.

Yesterday we spent at Princes Margaret Hospital, thee infectious disease hospital in the city and center of the SARS epidemic management in 2003. It was fascinating to see the huge impact that event had on the city and the reorganization of the health care system to deal with future threats of tha type. It is also clear that the event of that time have left a hugh impact on the citizens of Hong Kong, and especially the healthcare workers involved, many of whom died.

Burt Dibble