Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies
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Focus Alternat Complement Ther©2005 Pharmaceutical Press
Focus Altern Complement Ther 2003; 8: 133
The project was concerned with the tensions between biomedicine and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). We worked with the premise that health service provisions are embedded in the complex relationship between local practices and wider social processes. To approach the issues of the effectiveness of TCM services, we examined perceptions of practicing TCM in Vancouver; commonly used approaches to barriers/access; and the role of the local community in negotiating health services and transmitting healthcare knowledge among Chinese immigrant TCM practitioners in Vancouver.
A critical ethnographic approach was used. The study was conducted in Greater Vancouver and involved 13 TCM practitioners that were purposively selected. To strengthen the validity of the findings, data were collected from three sources: interviews, participant observation, and official documents. The NUD.IST Vivo data analysis package was used. Because this research is concerned with discursive practices, the analysis uses the exact words of the informants. The interpretation of data is a deconstruction process by which we examine the sanctioning or suppression of ideas within the discourse of this interested context and translate it into new meaning.
Preliminary findings indicate that TCM practice in Vancouver is an uneasy task that requires creative power and business skills. Barriers include a lack of adequate resources and support system, vicious competition, constraints placed by current laws/regulations, language barriers, discrimination, financial factors, conceptual difficulties, and problems associated with immigration. The tension existing between the two systems indicates a lack of common ground, problems in mutual communication, and power imbalance.
